


The Guardian

by stilesinwonderland (itsabravenewworld)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Kid Fic, M/M, Magic Revealed, Wolf Derek
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-09 09:18:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3244340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsabravenewworld/pseuds/stilesinwonderland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young Stiles befriends a stray dog in his mother's garden, but there must be something more to what his memories tell him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "Live with wolves, and you learn to howl” -Spanish Proverb

 

Looking back, Stiles sometimes found it hard to believe that he thought the world was a simple place. That dreams were just dreams, and that memories, as foggy as they can be, were played out like a storyline. Stiles’s memories were often like that, snippets of the murky scenes of his childhood, and he remembered those few instances vividly.

 

But remembering isn’t the same as believing.

 

-

 

Stiles’s dad always hated when he ventured into the woods alone.

 

Stiles had discovered the little stretch of forest connected at the edge of town while walking home from school. It was a fantastic discovery, and in his childhood, Stiles fully believed that the forest hadn’t even existed before he had come upon it. He had no idea why at the time, but that first day he sat under the large trunk of a tree for a few minutes, talking to the flowers and bugs littering the ground around his feet. He walked the remainder of the distance home with dirt caked on his shoes, treading into the house.

 

Every once in awhile, he would return or reroute his trip home to include a quick walk through the paths of the woods dimmed by the dense trees. It was his own secret thing, and it was nice being alone for a little bit. But he didn’t quite feel alone there; he felt like there was something watching over him behind the leaves, just out of his sight -- something that even the darkness of the woods couldn’t make scary to him.

 

His parents caught onto the fact that it was taking him longer to get home though, and forced Stiles to tell them what he was doing on his way that didn’t involve walking the normal path. After he hesitantly explained and Stiles’s mother calmed his dad down from panicking over the fact that _his son was alone in the woods every day for God’s sake_ , she explained to Stiles that he would not be allowed to go to the woods alone, but that she would take him every day if he wanted to walk around.

 

So, she did. She would walk him through the greenery, watching him with an intense eye, and pointed out plants that should definitely _not_ be eaten and the bugs that should definitely be left alone. Because of course her “mom goggles” were always on, and she focused straight on the dangers instead of the pretty flowers Stiles would pick for her (though she would put them in her hair and appreciate them well enough). Stiles, small even for his age, had a horrible habit of tripping over roots and falling over, so his mom also started to bring a first aid kit. She packed them water bottles and snacks, kept them tucked under her long arms. Mrs. Stilinski would also bring food with her on the walks, large apples, sandwiches with plenty of meat and leftovers from the night before.

 

One day, Stiles saw his mother dropping one of the sandwiches to the ground gently, murmuring something under her breath and he paused with his stick-weapon that had recently been assaulting a thin tree still in the air. Stiles, assuming that somehow the food had slipped out of her grip, asked, “Mom, did you drop one of the sandwiches?”

 

Stiles’s mother snapped up with a smile that stretched her lips out a little too far. “Yeah, baby. I’m just leaving it here so the animals can eat it, because it’s probably disgusting, right?”

 

“Gross,” Stiles affirmed seriously, but his attention had already become caught by a tiny doe hobbling down at the far end of the path they were heading down, sniffing at the greenery. It looked up in their direction and froze in its tracks, eyes going wide. Mrs. Stilinski noticed it just after her son, and walked up behind Stiles, patting at his shoulder.

 

“Let’s head back now, okay, honey? It’s getting late.”

 

Stiles nodded and followed his mother, not taking note of the twigs snapping just behind them, choosing instead to pretend the large stick he was holding was a cane and fighting off imaginary monsters.

 

-

 

During the summers from when he was ten to eleven, Stiles would help his mother plant flowers in her garden after school. They built a metal arch entryway, a stone wall surrounding the garden, and a pathway around the bushes and potted small plants. Stiles wasn’t truly much help, because he would lose focus easily and run circles around his mother, but it was still something Claudia insisted that they do together; he was glad to help.

 

They finally finished the project the summer after Stiles first found interest in the forest. Stiles soon forgot about the trees and chose to sit amongst the flowers instead of walking all that way. Maybe it was the pride of doing something important, something that meant something to his mother, but it made him smile every time he saw the place.

 

Sunflowers were his mom’s favorite flower, so he convinced his father to take him to buy seeds from the local hardware store along with a pot to put them in. For her birthday in July, Stiles put a single seed and a couple handfuls of dirt in. His mother had smiled so brightly at him, even before he started to explain that the plant would grow to be a sunflower and right then it was just a seed. She pulled him into a strong hug and let Stiles’s feet dangle off of the ground as he squawked.

 

“I love it, baby,” she told him, kissing him on the forehead and taking the pot straight outside to set it on a high part of the wall, rubbing her hands free of dirt afterwards. “Let’s go see what your dad got me, now,” she added with a silly giggle before racing Stiles inside.

 

His dad got her a couple of shirts wrapped sloppily with wrapping paper that had been sitting in the upstairs closet since the Christmas before. She said she loved them but Stiles was sure that his gift was _much_ better.

 

-

 

Days after it rained were always Stiles’s favorite. He would perch himself on a stone bench in front of the porch and watch the plants and the leaves gather water droplets and drip to the ground. He would dig up worms and bring them to his mother to gross her out until she told him that it hurt them and then he didn’t do that anymore.

 

Though he still went for walks when he was feeling particularly lonely and needed some of the strange comfort that the forest lent, as he turned eleven, most of his time was spent in the place he and his mother built together. Naps on the porch swing surrounded by the greenery seemed to give him extra energy, and he was able to play for much longer.

 

Stiles doesn’t remember when it happened, he thinks it was most likely a Thursday after cub scouts while his mother was making dinner. But he _does_ remember shaggy black fur suddenly dashing into the garden, a large dog shaking rainwater loose from its fur and watching him intently. Stiles’s eyes followed it moving, captivated by its size. It was most likely taller than the bench and Stiles combined if it were to stand up on his hind legs. He knew that it couldn’t have been a lab, or a german shepherd, or any other dog he’d ever seen, and it looked like it was smart by how long the dog stared.

 

Stiles should have been scared, his mother had warned him about unknown dogs, but he just wasn’t.

 

“Hi,” he said bluntly to the dog, and smiled when it let out a low _whuff_ as a reply _. “_ Hi, come over here.” And the dog trotted over with the hand motion, sniffing at Stiles’s outstretched hand. “Oh, you’re a nice dog.” This was met with a growl, low and sounding less than threatening and more indignant than anything. “Sorry,” Stiles found himself saying to the stray in response to its growling. He checked for a collar on its neck for a tag of some sort, to no avail.

 

“What’s your name?” He asked the dog eventually, petting along its neck and the fur that was starting to smell like wet dog (which duh). “I don’t know what to call you, there’s no tag or anything here.” He scritched behind its ears for a few more minutes, meeting the dog’s _really_ bright blue eyes and biting his lip. “I’m going to call you Blacky.” He laughed at the playful nip that the dog delivered to his hand. Stiles deduced that the dog was a boy after a few moments of watching. “You don’t like that? Well, what about Bruce?” The dog huffed again, and Stiles figured he wasn’t completely opposed to the name. “Yeah, Bruce is cool. Like a superhero or something, you have to learn to fly. Not that Batman can fly. You should, though!” He made wings with his hands and flew them around in circles, full finger-paws and all, but lowered his arms when it looked like Bruce was raising his eyebrow. “You have actual _faces_ ,” Stiles marveled.

 

Bruce licked at his own paws, suddenly deciding to ignore him, and Stiles lowered himself to join him in the dry patch of stone that had no rainwater from the roof blocking it, crossing his legs. “Do you belong to someone, Bruce?” Bruce made a grunt while lifting his head again and Stiles smiled at him. “No, doesn’t look like it. But you seem too calm to be a wild dog, don't you?” Bruce moved his head to rest on Stiles’s lap, causing the boy to chuckle. He looked around his backyard, and said “Don’t you think my backyard is so awesome? I planted and built the stuff with my mom. We put a tire swing up on the tree over there, too, you should go and see it!”

 

Pulling at Bruce’s neck skin and ignoring his quiet growl, Stiles led him to the other stretch of the garden and pointed to the tree. Bruce loped along and sat amongst the flowers poking out of the ground as Stiles perched on the little piece of slightly damp wood, swinging his legs back and forth to move. He laughed at Bruce’s head as it followed his movements, swinging higher and higher, then jumping off. It was easy to think that Bruce’s huff was the dog-version of laughter when he noticed that the back of his pants were wet.

 

And that’s how it usually went. Stiles would come home from school, do his homework, eat a snack, and then race to the garden. Bruce was almost always already there, sitting up tall and sniffing at the flowers or biting at his own leg when it snuck up on him. Stiles always gave a dimply smile when Bruce’s tail would wag at his arrival. He would sit next to him, letting Bruce lay down, plastered to his side, and would pet his back.

 

Of course Stiles never expected the dog to respond to his tale of the day, but he kept talking to him. Bruce didn’t talk back, but he would make noises, growls and huffs to show that he was attentive. It was soothing, the same way the forest soothed him, and the way the garden helped him wake up. And they both enjoyed the company.

 

-

 

“Bruce, Bruce!” Stiles said as he ran out of his house, moving out of the view of the window to meet the giant dog. He tackled him in a hug and laughed when Bruce playfully rolled them around on the ground. “Look at my haircut!” He stood, posing and showing off his new buzzcut. “Mom told me it was getting too long, so she took me right after school to go and they just cut it all off! It feels cold all of the time now,” he laughed, dropping his backpack.

 

Bruce sat next to him as per usual, and Stiles didn’t hesitate to run his fingers through the thick fur on his neck. “Oh! I hurt my arm too coming home today,” he lifted his arm to show the dog the deep cut on his arm, reaching to his elbow. There was no blood along with less stinging already and Stiles was surprised to hear a low whine from the dog as he shuffled forward to sniff the cut. Continuous huffs came out of Bruce’s nose and Stiles muttered, “hey, I’m okay buddy.” He flinched at the feeling of Bruce’s wet tongue lapping against the skin of his arm, dampening it. “Ew, cut it out!”  

 

Bruce stopped, watching him, and stood up, trotting around the yard. Stiles chased him through the garden, and Bruce shot into the forest next to their house for a little bit, sprinting back like he always did, this time holding a stick.  
  


Stiles took hold of it, kept it in his grip. He looked off far into the woods where Bruce always emerged. “Don’t you have a family?” he asked the dog, feeling troubled for the first time since he’d met the animal.

 

Bruce lowered his head to the ground in a crouch and wagged his tail frantically. Of course Bruce couldn’t understand him, Stiles realized; he only wanted the stick.  Stiles huffed and threw it as far as he could. Bruce sprinted, followed the stick and carried it back in his teeth.

 

“You’re awesome, Bruce!” Stiles called when he brought it back and dropped it at Stiles’s feet. He picked it up as Bruce jumped up and down on his two front paws with a growling noise. He chucked it again, watching while Bruce chased it into the woods with a playful growl.

\

Stiles's joyous laughter was interrupted by the screen door leading into his house opening up; he froze and turned to see his mother watching him with a tight smile.

 

"Hey kiddo," she greeted him. She was leaning against the door, and she was in her work uniform, which meant she'd be home for dinner. She looked like she needed a nap, her eye sockets blue from lack of sleep. As always, she looked happy to see him anyways.

 

Stiles looked back to the woods and to his mother, and back again. Besides the rustling of the trees from the wind, there was no other motion, and Stiles relaxed slightly. He wasn't sure what his mom would think of him playing with a mysterious dog in their yard. The kids at school had told him about the kennel and what happened to wild dogs that were called in by worried parents. And Bruce wasn't _bad,_ and he helped Stiles more than anything, so Stiles would keep him safe.

 

"Hi mom," he said, keeping his tone light.

 

"What are you doing out here?" Her inquisitive brown eyes traced the yard. Stiles swallowed and shrugged.

 

"I like to play out here. It's not a big deal."

 

Mrs. Stilinski hummed quietly and tossed her brown ponytail back behind her head. "Why don't you help me get dinner started for your dad?"

 

Stiles did a sweep of the yard and couldn't find a trace of Bruce waiting in the bushes. "Sure," he eventually said, and followed her through the door. As his mom explained how to properly dice tomatoes for a salad and Stiles jumped around on the counters, Stiles spotted the lone stick lying on the ground just outside of the woods and smiled.

 

-

 

At such a young age, Stiles didn’t notice his mother becoming sicker until time wore her down. They took shorter walks because “mommy is tired” and “mommy has to make dinner.” With dinner on the table, the young Stiles wasn’t seeing anything wrong with the picture. Until suddenly he _was,_ because sometimes his mom couldn’t get up to take him to school anymore, or make him lunch, and the walks eventually stopped completely.  

 

Stiles started to be woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of dry heaving coming from the bathroom and he would sit with his legs hanging over the sink, rubbing at his mom’s head soothingly when he found her hanging over the toilet. He didn't know what else to do, and he never told anyone, but that's what scared him the most; watching her deteriorate and not helping her.

 

She didn’t _look_ deathly sick, which was the problem. It was something eating away at her insides, something Stiles would later realize was a frontotemporal dementia. But then, it seemed as though she had the flu; she walked around sluggishly and drank strange smelling teas that she wouldn’t let Stiles try no matter how thirsty he was. Sometimes she forgot things, simple things like where she’d left her keys, and she was cranky, but it was nothing too severe. It made it hard to anticipate just how bad everything would get.

 

-

  
Stiles could hear screaming coming from his house when he approached the first turn into his driveway. When Stiles stepped into the cool house, he started at the dark haired woman standing in the kitchen with his mother before he realized who it was. “Hey Mrs. Hale,” he said, not noticing either of the women’s tense postures, how they were bent over the kitchen table and speaking heatedly. He sniffed, and the smell of something burning filled his nostrils.

 

“Stiles,” Talia greeted, holding her glare at Mrs. Stilinski. Since Stiles could remember, Talia had been a frequent presence in their house. Her dark features, startling green eyes, and near-black short cropped hair were so distinct that even though Stiles couldn’t remember his father’s best friend Carter by name, he always knew who Talia was at first sight. Stiles liked her a lot; even though she gave off the air that she was unquestionably in charge and spoke in blunt phrase, she was always warm when speaking, an undeniable mother-figure. Right then, she looked rather upset about something, though, and it threw Stiles off a bit.

 

“Is everything okay?” Stiles asked hesitantly.

 

His mother didn’t break her gaze either until he coughed. She smiled weakly at him; she seemed more tired than Stiles had ever seen her. “Everything will be fine, baby. Why don’t you go outside, okay? Mrs. Hale and I have some things to talk over.” Talia turned sharply to look at his mom, but all Claudia did was smile reassuringly.

 

Stiles shrugged. “Okay.”

 

It was silent until he walked out of the door, but kept looking back into the kitchen where his mother leaned her chin into her outstretched hands. Bruce was sitting on the tiles right next to the door, much closer to the house than usual. Stiles petted his head roughly. “Hey dude. You shouldn’t sit so close to the door, mom could see you.”

 

Bruce groaned, lowering his head to Stiles chest. Confused, Stiles petted at his ears. “You’re acting weird now too?” He went to get up, but Bruce’s enormous paw slapped him in the chest until he fell down and the dog took the chance to drape himself over Stiles’s body. Stiles grabbed a stick, attempted to get Bruce riled up to play fetch. Bruce refused to do much else besides lie down and stare intently at the porch door, so Stiles sat cross-legged with him on his lap, the quick drag of the dog’s tongue confusing him even more.

 

-

 

The next day, Stiles sat with Bruce under the tree next to his garden and told him, “We took mom to the hospital today.” Bruce didn’t make his usual huffing noise or grunt to let him know that he was listening, but Stiles knew that he was without it. The silence was more comforting, inviting him to talk. “She fell down and looked kind of green. Dad didn’t tell me anything, but they’re keeping her there for a little bit.” Stiles was picking at his jacket violently as he spoke, and Bruce soothed his scratchy tongue over his fingers, calming the movement down until Stiles was still again. “And I don’t know how long for.”

 

The dog made a sympathetic whining noise in his throat, licking at Stiles’s arm again, leaving a trail of slobber behind that Stiles didn’t bother wiping away. “I’m going to make her cookies so she’ll get better.” Stiles wiped at his misty eyes. It took Stiles a few moments to get the energy to get up, but he eventually did and left Bruce there, shutting the door behind him.

 

The next day, Stiles walked up to a waiting Bruce with a tray of cookies, dropping them to the ground with a harsh clatter. “Mom didn’t want to see me. You can have these.” He walked back into the house with his head down, leaving Bruce with the cookies. Bruce looked to the cookies then the door and back before snatching one up and eating it, then another and another until they were gone, leaving when Stiles didn’t come back out.

 

With his backpack slung over his hunched shoulders,  Stiles smiled despite himself when he saw the empty tray of cookies the next morning, licked clean and set on his back porch.

 

-

 

“Dad?” Stiles walked up to the Sheriff, tapping at his father’s arm. John lifted his head from where his arms were resting on his desk, eyeing Stiles with reddened and sleep-deprived eyes, and tried to smile. It ended up being pitiful at best, but Stiles couldn’t blame him.

 

“Yeah?” His dad’s voice scratched out quietly, and Stiles had never heard him that way, so tired and defeated, so he knew something was detrimentally wrong. That smell of smoke and burnt tar was still there, but it was fading ever so slowly, enough to where Stiles was craving it because it meant that his mom hadn’t been home for too long.

 

“Is there something really wrong with mom?” His dad flinched, and Stiles knew the answer before he even said anything.

 

“Yeah, Stiles. Your mom is sick.”

 

Stiles went quiet, and his fingers started tapping anxiously on his dad’s desk. He breathed in sharply, asked, “How bad is it?” The amount of time he waited for an answer was too long for him, and his tapping grew louder as he repeated the question, louder this time.

 

“Stiles,” his dad snapped, pressing a palm against Stiles’s fingers to stop the tapping. “I-- she’s not good, bud. The doctors, they don’t know what to do.”

 

Stiles nodded, tearing up. He felt like he couldn’t breathe all of a sudden. “I’m going to sit outside.”

 

John looked at his son, seemed to be choking on his words before he swallowed and nodded. “Okay, kid. Be careful, don’t go far.” He pet at Stiles’s head and as soon as Stiles hobbled out through the doorway, slammed his head back onto the desk.

 

Stiles tied on his gym shoes and left out his back door to walk through the garden. Bruce wasn’t there like he usually was, so Stiles sat on his swing, pushing himself up and back. Flowers were supposed to still be blooming, but they were starting to wilt instead, dying from the heat and the lack of watering, and Stiles frowned. He shot up, running to the side of his house.

 

He attempted to pull his hose out from the loops it was in next to the house, and tugged it to the back. Turning the hose on, he lifted it up and let the water fill up the pots until he figured they were watered well enough. Stiles reached up to give water to the plants that were higher up, standing on the tips of his toes. His hand fumbled with the hose as a powerful spurt of water shot out and it fell out of his hands, knocking straight into a small pot, and he watched as it fell to the ground and shattered. The single sunflower fell out and into a puddle of water from the hose, mud turning it a ruddy yellow.  

 

Stiles shot back in shock, his bottom lip twitching. “No,” he muttered, voice cracking. He sniffled loudly and let out a barked sob. “No," he repeated, overwhelmed, and then raced out of the yard.

 

He didn’t know why he was running and where he was going, but he couldn’t stop once he started, heavy breaths replacing the sobs that felt like they were breaking his throat in half.The tears were still flowing fast, and they kept going until his feet were no longer pounding against the pavement but were crunching leaves and snapping twigs. Somehow Stiles had run all the way into the forest, and he was hopping over tree roots and large rocks just to keep going.

 

Stiles’s feet tripped to a stop when he grew too tired. Slowly, he lowered into a crouch on the ground. There was a stitch in his side, a burning pain that he hadn’t noticed. His tiny arms curled around himself as he looked at the trees around him.

 

It didn’t take him long to realize that he was lost. Stiles turned multiple times, trying to see a path he had come from, crying out when there was none. He felt his throat starting to close up with worry and he sat on the ground, putting his head between his knees like his father had taught him to do when he panicked. He breathed in and tried to focus, the tears feeling cold on his face until he moved a hand to wipe them off.

 

His limbs shook even with the muggy air pressing at his skin and for the next ten minutes, he shook in that spot. He took a deep breath eventually, scrubbed at his sticky face. Stiles stood himself up when he felt that he could breathe again, the rough bark of a tree scratching his palms because he used it for support.

 

Stiles tried finding his way back, holding onto his shirt sticking to his tiny waist. He remembered what his father had told him about forests; follow the moon and it would lead him to open land. Stiles knew it would take a while, but the thought of an actual plan brought comfort to him. He followed the bright orb in the sky; not even a mile later he felt weak at the knees and tired.

 

The forest eventually started to get dark, the shadows of the trees near-black, and Stiles could barely see his own hands in front of him, even with the moon shining. The trees were getting denser as he went, and he began to worry that he was going the wrong way.  Rubbing at his nose, he kept moving through and looked quickly behind himself whenever he heard a sudden noise.

 

His heart was beating so loudly that he could feel it in his chest, enough that he pressed a palm right above it to try and ease the pounding ache. Stiles had never really been scared of the dark, but the noises of the forest were making him feel even less at ease as the sun went down farther in the sky and revealed more stretches of shadows under the trees. “This is bad,” he said, sitting down when his legs got sore and tired.

 

Stiles glanced desperately around and groaned, kicking at a rock and watching it roll over a small ridge of ground. The rock slammed to the ground and thudded against something hidden in the dirt, and then a shape lunged at him, hissing. It stopped his breath in his throat, leaving just enough for him to scream.

 

He was off like a shot, dashing through the trees even though he couldn’t see anything, not checking back to see if the snake was following him. The trees got thicker the farther back he went, and he didn’t even see the large root sticking out of the ground until he’d already tripped over it. Stiles screamed, feeling something in his leg snap, tears springing to his eyes from the pain flushing up through his ankle. He crashed to the ground, slamming his head against the trunk of a large tree.  “No no no,” he moaned on the ground and grabbed at his leg to pull it closer so he could try and futilely stop the pain. His head swam, his heart beat making his temple pound, and his vision whited out.

 

He didn’t even feel like he was able to cry anymore because he was dry, like his eyes had sucked up all of the water in his body to use. Suddenly he was really really thirsty. His ankle hurt, his head hurt, he was thirsty and hungry, and Stiles just really wanted his mom. He said as much, whispering into the sky between dry sobs of his pain when he could grasp the breaths needed to do so.

 

Stiles tried sitting up and collapsed back down when the pain in his head flashed angrily. Behind his eyelids, he registered a light, dimly flickering before it burnt out. He moaned, rubbing at the sore spot on the back of his head. He waited, waited for the throbbing in his head to finally ease to just a barely manageable ache instead of fiery misery. By that time, it was pitch dark and his tears had subsided, soaking into his salty skin.

 

At first the rustling of the trees wasn’t frightening enough for Stiles to make himself sit up. It was hard to see from his position on the ground, but Stiles’s vision was foggy with tears anyhow.

 

The growl came out of nowhere, a sudden sharp noise breaking the silence. It was loud and startling, so Stiles sat himself up against the nearest tree after his initial full-body jerk of shock. He felt more woken up even with the late hour and scrambled up against the bark, knowing only that he needed to _hide_. He watched along the lines of the trees and saw nothing, no motion.  

 

The bark following the growl was aprimal noise, startling a gasp out of Stiles’s mouth. It was still impossible to see anything but Stiles strained, attempting to sight any change in the shadows. He wasn’t sure if he should be scared or not, though he was shocked enough to start shaking, and the growling continued, lowering in its intensity as if it were reacting directly to his fear. He stopped moving completely.

 

“Bruce?” He didn’t know how he knew before the large dog even creeped into the clearing that it was indeed Bruce, but he could _feel_ it, and it was an instinctual knowledge of comfort as the dog quickly approached him. A whine let loose from the dog’s throat, quiet. Stiles relaxed as Bruce rubbed his muzzle along Stiles’s cheek and the scratchy fur tickled his skin. Bruce sniffed at his purpling ankle with quiet snuffles and Stiles whimpered. “I can’t walk,” Stiles told him. “I need to get home.” His head swam again, a throb feeling like a brand new blow to his skull.

 

“I need to go home,” Stiles repeated, watching Bruce as he moved to lay next to Stiles. He shook his head and scooped his muzzle down to reach under Stiles’s arm and lift it over his head. Immediately, Stiles’s arms moved around the large dog’s neck and clutched on. He squeezed tightly and breathed out heavily into the clean-smelling fur of Bruce’s back. The feeling of the hard, quick breathing body under his felt like a solid presence. Stiles sobbed quietly into the warmth and refused to let go.

 

The world felt as if it were shifting violently under his body and he shot his head up, watching dizzily as the ground moved away as he was lifted up onto Bruce’s body. His fingers scrambled to keep hold and he pulled too hard, apologizing at the pained noise Bruce let out. Stiles moved his own body and straightened it until his was seated completely, as if he were riding a horse. When Bruce moved, almost immediately reaching a gallop through the brush, Stiles closed his eyes again, dropping his head to the place where Bruce’s neck reached his shoulders.

 

Bruce’s fur smelled like the forest, and like burnt leaves. Stiles couldn’t help but hold his face closer.

 

Eventually, Stiles turned his face to the side and started to talk. “The doctors don’t know how bad mom is. I think she’s pretty bad. She’s been in the hospital for a week, Bruce.” He whimpered when his ankle was roughly jostled against Bruce’s side and felt the dog slowing to a trot and then into a walk. Bruce snorted in apology and kept his pace slower than before, a gentle trot across the forest floor. Stiles focused on the feeling of Bruce’s shoulders as they moved back and forth with the motion of his legs instead of his pain. “I knocked our flower over. It was an accident.”

 

Bruce panted and barked once, twice. Stiles clutched tighter as he broke into a run again. He took notice of the trees starting to thin out; there was a street light a short distance away, and a road.

 

 _“Stiles!”_ A bellow sounded out, familiar and close. Stiles gasped.

 

Bruce halted to a stop, sniffing at the air towards the river. He sat onto the ground, Stiles clutching onto the fur of his back until he realized that Bruce was setting him down in the dirt. “Bruce, Bruce, it’s my dad,” Stiles kept muttering after he was seated securely, keeping hold of his shaggy mane on his neck and petting him excitedly. “Is he coming?”

 

The dog turned his head to face him,  blue eyes gleaming from the light of the moon. His growl sounded more like a mumble, a conversational affirmative. “You’re actually a superhero,” Stiles said in amazement.

 

Bruce shook Stiles's hand off of his head with a deep grunt and stood on all fours. His shoulders tensed before he was walking away, and Stiles stretched to grab onto his hind leg. “Wait, wait!” His voice sounded panicked and frail. “Where are you going? Don’t leave me here alone, please. Please?” A wet tongue ran over his cheek once, his muzzle pressing into the side of his cheek, and his eyes closed as a reflex. When he opened them again, Bruce was gone, his tail just visible in the brush as he dashed away.

 

“Bruce?” Stiles was suddenly struck with the throbbing in his head as fast as it had disappeared. It made him dizzy and he passed out, slumping over onto his side with the wind whistling through the trees around him.

 

“Stiles!” John finally, _finally_ caught sight of Stiles and raced to him, falling onto his knees and dropping his large flashlight. “Jesus kid, _Jesus_ you’re okay. You’ll be okay.” He touched lightly at his boy’s head, not knowing if he should pick him up or not. He noticed from the light of his flashlight that Stiles’s ankle was twisted grotesquely and a dark purple. “Stiles, can you hear me? Come on buddy, come on. I can’t lose you, not you too,” John smacked at his face lightly, attempting to awaken his son, letting out a wet cry when Stiles blearily blinked his eyes open.  

 

“Dad?” he croaked, his voice wet with tears.

 

John smiled down at him. “Thank God, Stiles. What on Earth are you-- come on, we have to get you up, come on, you must be _insane,_ why are you even in the woods, there are animals out here. Stray dogs run through here when they get lost,” Stiles couldn’t get a word in through John’s rambling, and was hastily and desperately crushed into a hug.

 

“I’m okay dad,” was all he could say through the fabric of John’s shirt. His face felt squished but he felt too relieved to complain about it. “I’m okay, promise. I tripped and fell. I’m sorry.” He didn't tell his dad about Bruce, lest he panic even more than he was at the thought of a strange dog, no matter how friendly, being near his son. “There weren’t any bad dogs. I got scared by a snake and fell.”

 

John looked at his son warily. “Stiles, we have to take you to the doctor; your ankle is hurt. I’m going to pick you up, okay?” Stiles nodded, and he reached one arm under Stiles’s legs and one against his back. He hesitated, asking “Stiles, is anything else hurting? Your back, your neck?”

 

“No, but I hit my head,” Stiles moaned as he was hefted into a fireman carry, and John checked against the back of his skull, sighing at the large bump forming.

 

“Alright, we’re going now, okay?” He grunted, fixed Stiles in his arms and set off towards the road.

 

“Okay,” Stiles answered, holding onto John’s jacket. He fell asleep again in John’s arms and woke up in the back seat of an ambulance pulled up on the side of the road.

 

“Hey Stiles, how you feeling?” His dad asked him, rubbing along the top of his head, looking relieved and completely exhausted at the same time. Stiles frowned.

 

“Tired,” he replied, finally noticing the IV in his arm. His dad gave him a wary look as Stiles started to breathe heavier. “Dad?” The monitor to his left beeped multiple times as his heart skipped when he realized that he was going to the hospital, where his mom was. Where he could possibly be in as much danger as she was.

 

“Dad, I can’t breathe.” His breathing stuttered and his head swam. The sheets rustled under his small fists taking hold of them.

 

“Breathe, buddy, you’re okay.” Stiles shook his head frantically and clenched his eyes closed to try and regain composure. His dad pressed two thumbs into the corners of his temples, rubbed along the crown of his head and Stiles could feel the tension settled there in his skin. The rubbing calmed him down enough to settle his dizziness and he relaxed against the sheets, exhausted.

 

The two paramedics in the back with them managed to calm Stiles down by explaining that he wasn't in any danger and that he just needed to get a cast for his foot. Stiles took hold of his dad's hand and clenched it tight in his own. The ride to the hospital was silent, save for Stiles’s fast-paced breathing and the beeping of the machinery.

 

-

His dad took him home from the hospital the next morning and told him he was staying home from school that day and the next. Stiles picked at his cast, and knew that his father was secretly angry with him for getting himself into trouble, but was refusing to yell at him. He was just worse at hiding it than his mom was.

 

“You too, dad.” Stiles eventually said to him, looking to him instead of where he had been staring out the window.

 

“What?” John asked, not looking away from the road.

 

“You should stay home too and take a break.” The tension bled out of his father’s shoulders at his words. He huffed out a laugh, looked at him fondly.

 

“I love you too much, kid.” Stiles felt the guilty ache in his chest ease at his dad’s words.

 

“I love you too.”

 

-

 

There was a memory in the back of Stiles’s mind, of the forest, and the trembling leaves where they touched the ground in a whisper. It felt at the time something like a dream, one that he couldn’t wake up from until he learned what he needed to from it. In it, he raced along the treeline, the outline of Bruce’s form following, just beyond a shadow.

 

The leaves drifted wherever his outstretched palms pointed, and they flew around him in flurries of autumn colors. In a swirl, they began to circle around his feet and Stiles laughed, splayed his hands out until the leaves flew out into a disarray.

 

In the dreams, Bruce disappeared when he stopped running, cheeks red from exertion, but the sound of the leaves never wavered, and his nose burned with an overwhelming scent.

-

 

Stiles’s final visit to the hospital was the shortest one. He’d already learned to hate the practiced quiet, and he couldn’t do anything as his mother lay amongst the blankets.

 

John woke her up slowly, and it looked too much to even open her eyes. But her eyes, they were bright, lively as always. Though the surroundings changed, her skin becoming tight and dry, the green in her eyes never faded. “What happened here?” she asked Stiles.

 

Stiles frowned in disappointment at himself. “I fell in the forest.”

 

Oddly, Claudia only grinned, her expression wry. “Well that’s odd. The forest should be a safe place. You never worry about your adventures. I know you’ll stay safe.”

 

“I don’t get it,” Stiles said, bluntly.

 

She just smiled again, more tired than before. “I just want you to know that everything happens for a reason, my love.”

 

“I know that, mom,” Stiles said, with a bit of attitude, because she still wasn’t making much sense.

 

Claudia nodded. “I know you do. But you need--” she said between coughs. “What you need to do is _remember.”_

 

“I will,” Stiles promised, not quite understanding.

 

Before long, she was tearing up, tugging Stiles into a tight hug. “You do it. You can do everything, even with your restrictions.”

 

“Claudia,” a voice interrupted them. Talia Hale stood at the doorway. The shadows passing over her face revealed her gloomy demeanor more than ever under the hospital lights, the scowl she had directed towards Stiles’s mother.

 

“Okay.” Claudia let him go, and tapped at his back until he slid off the bed and walked to meet his dad. “Stiles?”  she called for him before they left. Stiles turned around beyond John’s bicep.

 

She winked. “Love you.”

 

“Love you too, mom,” Stiles said with a grin, and then left.

 

-

 

But of course, that never lasts, because not a week later, that same smiling and bright boy was standing over a casket instead, not even a trace of a smile to be found. Stiles in his cast, digging it into the dirt and letting his tears track down his face because he was too busy clutching onto his father’s hand for strength to wipe them away. It was raining outside, pounding on the roof of the building, very much like a stereotypical funeral. For a long time there was nothing but the sound of rain and badly muffled tears, and the occasional coo of a child, oblivious in its mother's arms. No one could bring themselves to speak.

 

Far in the distance, low howls rang out, breaking through the silence. Stiles couldn’t manage to choke down his sob.

 

The world became too quiet following Claudia’s death, like her presence had not only left a gaping hole in the Stilinskis’ lives, but in the universe they existed in too. Fall’s crumbling, rustling leaves were irritatingly quiet and instead of crying, Stiles could only stare at his backyard until the rusted sun set over the hill past the trees, his knees pulled to his chest. He felt _tired,_ consumed by something that he didn’t understand.

 

The day of the funeral was different when Bruce arrived, shaking pine needles out of his fur and dashing to him. His head butted under Stiles armpit and he put his face into Stiles’s lap, whimpering as Stiles hastily rearranged his limbs to make room for him.

 

“Hey boy,” Stiles croaked out, and the whines didn’t stop, large paws scratching at his thighs, scraping his cast. “What’s wrong with you?” Stiles petted under Bruce’s ears. It was hard to see his eyes because he was digging his face into Stiles’s stomach.

 

Bruce licked his hand, stared at him. Stiles inhaled, frustrated. “Was that you today? That I heard?” The paw slapped onto his thigh and a thick muzzle next to it confirmed his suspicions. “Thank you,” Stiles muttered, holding, holding on.

 

-

 

Mr. Stilinski kept working, even though they got plenty of insurance money for his wife’s death to at least give him time to mourn (much more than that, it would keep them well above water until Stiles was in middle school). “I don’t need time,” he had insisted to his boss. “I don’t.” He worked just as well as usual, even with as little sleep as he was getting.

 

Stiles still went to school, but cried in the bathroom during recess every day. Even the teachers stopped looking for him (the other children didn’t even care), leaving him to himself. Other parents told his dad that those were ways to cope, and it would pass with time, but Stiles couldn’t help but think that was a lie. It took them many years to even begin to cope.

 

-

 

Though Stiles was (albeit slowly) healing, everything was suddenly harder for him. His normal childhood was taken away from him, and in its place was a weight of anxietyhe shouldn’t have been experiencing, at least until he was much much older. Sometimes panic attacks left him too sick to go to school, and sometimes he was just too fatigued, in a way he’d never felt before.

 

It took a toll on him emotionally, too. Sometimes he took his sheltered anger out on classmates, his dad, and even unsuspecting Bruce. Bruce didn’t ever seem to mind when Stiles shouted, teary-eyed, at him which only made him feel worse later on. Like the time he’d told him that he should have more dog friends because it’s stupid to have a human friend. Bruce had huffed frustratedly and laid his head on Stiles’s lap persistently as Stiles tugged at his fur in his frustration.

 

That was all until the day Bruce didn’t come back. Stiles was still fuzzy-headed from being woken up by his father, but he had been having nightmares anyways, so he blinked his eyes open almost immediately.

 

The inside of the Stilinski house reeked of the familiar smoke stench that had been gone since his mother’s death, and Stiles felt his stomach drop. It felt _wrong_ \-- the feeling originated in his head, making it ache, and the fact that he didn’t know why was only making matters worse.

 

His father had been rushing out of the door, a few hours early for his shift, and Stiles followed him in his pajamas up to the door. Throwing his coat on, his dad looked down at him seriously. “Stiles, Cindy next door is coming to watch you before the babysitter gets here, so be good. Take your pills and go to sleep early, I’ll be back later.”

 

“Dad,” Stiles mumbled, taking in his father’s panicked expression and breathing in sharply. “What happened? Where are you going?”  

 

John turned to face him, eying him between the bars of their banister and pet his short hair. “There was a big fire and I need to be there right now to make sure everyone is okay. Just please, be good for the babysitter, okay? No trouble this time.” His father looked exhausted and ready to topple, so Stiles  nodded obediently. “Good boy, I have to go. Love you kid.”

 

“Love you,” Stiles said, a little too late for his dad to hear it before closing the door. Stiles felt an imperceptible sense of panic, that maybe his dad would get hurt.  The wood bars creaked as he clenched them in his little fists, and the smoky sensation was so strong, he could _taste_ it.

 

Panicked and needing comfort, he raced out of the back door, screamed “Bruce! Bruce!” until his throat was raw and close to bleeding. The rain pounded against the stone tiles and as Stiles watched, the spaces between them flooded up. But Bruce didn’t show up no matter how loudly he called, and eventually Cindy ushered him inside with a worried expression and a towel around his shoulders. Stiles’s frame shook, and he chanced one last glance out to the empty yard where he saw nothing.

 

His dad returned late, head hung, and when Stiles hugged him he could smell the soot on his clothes and feel the utter misery his dad felt. He buried his face further into his neck, and breathed in the smoke, the ash and death.

 

-

 

The next few days were filled with empty silence as Stiles waited for the clicking of the nails on the stone ground, and constant disappointment when he heard nothing and no one showed up to keep him company. He was ready every day at four PM with an apology sandwich, but that and his apology was spoiled soon. Even his father was absent more than usual, and Stiles played video games on his father’s large TV when he wasn’t home and the babysitter was asleep.

           

Without Bruce there to confide in, Stiles felt truly alone. His foundation had been torn out from under him, and he began to pin the blame for everything wrong in his life on the only one he felt really deserved it: himself.  Stiles must have yelled at him one too many times, lost his temper enough, so Bruce had left him.

 

Stiles waited for the last time in fifth grade, on a winter day with snow littering the ground. After ten minutes of calling, Stiles huffed and kicked a drift next to him. He slammed the door shut, and the snow on the roof sifted down into the snow unmarked by pawprints.

 

-

           

Stiles didn’t bother paying attention as Mrs. Shendall introduced the new student to them, telling them to make him feel as welcome as they could.  

           

“Hi,” the tiny boy said after taking a wary seat in the seat next to Stiles. At first, Stiles didn’t pay attention to the other boy and kept doodling in his notebook: sunflowers growing taller than the actual sun, his foot shaking in tandem as the teacher read from the board.

 

“Hi,” he answered back after a moment without looking back at him.

 

“I’m Scott,” the boy said with a slightly nasally voice and offered Stiles a bright smile as if they were already friends, like it was that easy for him. Stiles looked up at the first boy that had bothered to make nice conversation with him since his mother had died. This boy seemed different, with his moppy hair and a crooked, goofy smile. Stiles was intrigued.

 

“I’m Stiles,” he replied.

 

“That’s your name?” Scott asked, looking surprised, and Stiles was getting ready to defend himself against the harassment when Scott's surprise turned into a look of pure awe. He said, "That is so cool! I wanted a cool name like Stiles, but my dad named me Scott,” with a sour expression.  

           

“I like the name Scott,” Stiles offered, and Scott gave him a look of wonder.

 

“Hey, do you like video games?”

           

“Yes,” Stiles answered quickly, turning to face him. “I play video games all the time.”

           

“Oh my god, me too, you need to come over and play my Gamecube,  and mom won’t even care if we stay up past nine because she’s awesome. We can make pizza; do you like pizza though? Sorry, I should have asked that first, probably.”

           

“I’ll ask my dad, but he won’t mind,” Stiles answered in a whisper as the teacher scanned the room for the source of the sudden noise, “and yeah, I _love_ pizza.” Scott smiled at him, and unknowingly, he felt himself smiling back.  

 

Scott Mccall, a new student, was the first human to make him smile again, after months of his mom being gone.

 

Stiles’s teacher watched them, smiled, and moved on without interrupting them.

 

Scott was awkward and short, a little too large for his feet, and had little more hand-eye coordination than Stiles did. Stiles often asked his dad if Scott was secretly his brother. Every minute Scott wasn’t spending with his mother was spent with Stiles. Their closets blended together and more often than not, Stiles found himself slipping on a slightly too-long shirt and wearing it to school and hearing Scott complain about that being his favorite shirt, but they both knew that it meant they were best friends, so he never made Stiles give it back.

 

Middle school was tough on everyone, but Stiles had Scott to make everything bearable again. In time, he stopped crying himself to sleep, and even the nightmares subsided. He went on runs with Scott to try and help strengthen his friend’s lungs because it was what his doctors said would be best for Scott’s asthma, and the constant fresh air calmed Stiles’s mind as it always had back when the forest and Bruce were his best friends.

 

By eighth grade, Stiles had a cell phone and he stopped worrying over going through the woods because he knew he always had a way to contact his dad, and didn’t have to rely on someone finding him and saving him. Stiles’s ankle always acted up when he jogged through the trees, and eventually he had convinced himself that the fluttering of his heart was the combination of his ADHD and the exercise, and not what could have been hiding in the wilderness.  

 

But he ran.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh! Okay, so since I won't be able to do a lot of writing because of other huge projects, I thought I'd post the next chapter of this so there's something to tide you over. Sorry it took so long, guys, and I hope you like it!

Scott wheezed, bending himself in half and Stiles paused in his jog to assess the need for a hospital. “Inhaler,” he ordered as he shoved the small object at him, waiting for the other boy to take a breath in and hold it in long enough and blow the medicine out in a foggy huff. “Do you need to sit for a little bit?”

 

Scott waved a hand dismissively. “Naw, it’s actually not too bad right now. Just a few seconds.” He focused on breathing for a while longer as Stiles sat next to him in the grass, picking at the blades of frosted greenery.

 

“You’re doing so much better, though. It’s been more than two minutes, and you’re only slightly wheezing. _”_ Stiles chuckled and Scott wheezed a sarcastic laugh in reply, running his fingers through his hair.

 

“I don’t want to go to school tomorrow,” Scott mumbled finally after a few moments, and Stiles blinked, eyeing him. Scott's eyes looked a mixture between sad and worried, so the issue was something that had probably been nagging at him for a while.

 

“Why not?” Stiles gestured wildly, widening his eyes. “We’re going to High School, dude! High School! We’ll finally be great and awesome and can play sports; we could be popular!”

 

A goofy smile graced Scott’s face. “Yeah, I could play lacrosse. It’s way cooler than basketball anyways.”

 

“Yeah, basketball is lame. And I’ll be your partner in crime, of course,” Stiles responded, holding out his fist for a bump. “Don’t be sad when I kick your ass though.”

 

Scott rolled his eyes but accepted the gesture, breathing much lighter than he previously had and by then the ruddy red color of his cheeks had faded away. “‘Kay, I’m good.” He huffed, standing up and batting at the grass that Stiles had picked at and dropped on his black jeans. Stretching his legs out, Stiles stood as well, and was about to dash away and race Scott back on the path, but he stopped in his tracks.

 

“Hey, hey look,” Scott followed his pointed finger, catching sight of the barely-there path covered by long and dying grass and more dense trees. Small purple flowers surrounded the trail, and Stiles kicked at some of them.

 

“Where’s that go, you think?”

 

“I don’t know, Scotty.”

 

Stiles and Scott shared the same dramatic look that made both Scott’s mom and Stiles’s dad cringe because it was simply _wicked,_ and immediately stepped over a large rock and right onto the pathway.

 

Stiles typed out the directions they headed in his phone to make sure they didn’t get lost on the way back, entering things like “left at the weird looking tree” and “go straight for twelve pirate paces,” letting Scott lead the way down further into the thicker woods. This section of the forest was distinctly different than the rest, and the trees were much closer and denser, with large oaks and birch trees that were probably human-grown instead of the others that were spaced apart and grown naturally.

 

“What the heck?” Stiles looked back when Scott stopped, staying completely still. “What’s wrong?” He walked back to him, grabbing him by the arm. “Dude?”

 

“That’s the Hale house, Stiles,” he said, a haunted look in his eyes.

 

“Looks like a dump,” Stiles commented, kicking a lone stick on the ground and glancing at the dark and rotten-looking wooden house with narrowed eyes and a wrinkled nose. A buzzing started up in the back of his head, akin to a headache, but it wasn’t quite there yet. It was just an annoyance that felt like it was just about to breach into something more. “They need to call a maid or something, I think there’s a mouse colony cooking over a fire on the porch over there.”

 

“ _Dude_ ,” Scott said, and Stiles was shocked to hear disappointment lacing his tone. “The house _burnt down._ Almost the whole family was inside, Stiles. There were only like three people left alive.”

 

Freezing, Stiles couldn’t help but feel guilty. He eyed the ghost of a house with narrowed eyes.  “Crap.”

 

“Yeah,” Scott responded, patting him on the back, and it simultaneously said _hey i forgive you_ and _that was an asshole move_ at the same time, which made Stiles feel monumentally worse, because Scott didn’t even need to tell him he was being a jerk, he could _feel_ it. “Mom was on shift that night; I was with her in the hospital because the babysitter ditched on us. She cried at home because of all of the kids that died, and she couldn’t save any of them because they just burned away. The firemen couldn’t get out here fast enough to stop the house from burning down because it’s in the middle of nowhere.” His mouth twisted downwards as he stared at the broken and grimy window on the second floor of the pitiful house.

 

“God,” Stiles breathed, pulling at the fabric of the neck on his t-shirt. “I remember that now; Dad left early that night and said there was a bad fire. He came home covered in ash and went to bed; he wouldn’t even talk to me about it.” Stiles touched at the scorch-stained wood, caught the whiff of smoke. “Wait.”

 

“What?”

 

“Hale.” Stiles paused, looking over the house. He thought of black hair and green eyes, shuddered. “I knew-- I knew Talia Hale. My mom knew her.” The last time he’d seen Talia was the day she had been arguing with his mom, only a few months before her death. “I didn’t realize it was her.”

 

“It’s so sad,” Scott said eventually. “There were like twelve people in their family.”

 

Stiles felt himself taking a step back, pointing behind himself. “I think we should leave," and Scott nodded immediately, having already been backing away.

 

“Yeah,” he pulled at Stiles’s sleeve, watching the house as if something would pop out of the rickety front door at any second and yell at them for not respecting the grounds.  “I don’t want to mess with this place.”

 

They turned back, and Stiles chanced a glance at the house one last time, blinking rapidly at the sight of a dark shadow in an upper-floor window. It was gone between the second and third blinks, so he kept walking, trailing behind Scott and picking at his fingernails absentmindedly, as the wind blew the leaves in a violent torrent around him.

 

-

 

High school spawned Scott and Stiles into the greatest troublemakers of their time. It was mostly out of Stiles’s need for entertainment from different sources besides killing zombies constantly and not doing homework that was assigned to him. Sometimes he would take too much Adderall on purpose to stay awake all night and they’d plot something new to discover together or somewhere to break in.

At the same time, it was unfortunate and extremely lucky for Stiles to have a father who held sheriff status in town because on one side, Stiles technically couldn’t get in trouble with local law, but on the other, he was in trouble at home almost all of the time because he was immediately in the know. His father didn’t have the heart to ever ban Scott, Stiles closest (and realistically, his only) friend, from the house but very often the threat was enough to keep Stiles at bay, at least for a little bit. At least for a week.

 

He never really did anything _illegal_ , he wasn’t _stupid_ , they were just things that were frowned upon, but really, what was the fun of following rules? At least, that was Stiles’s philosophy, and at least he had _fun._

 

School was a whole different issue entirely. Stiles really did try his best to be good most of the time; but the teachers just didn’t _like_ him. They didn’t understand how Stiles could be so intelligent with so little effort. Stiles liked to say he was an innovator, not an imitator. His teachers made sure to take extra time out of lessons to pick on him, which really, was ridiculous because the other students always took it out on him for wasting class time, even though it was entirely not his fault. That was okay though, he had his partner in crime, and everyone else could just shove it.

 

And lacrosse was fun, sort of. Well, bench warming was a more proper term. Coach Finstock used him as a confidant because Stiles officially knew the technicalities of lacrosse more than he did. When Stiles suggested that perhaps Finstock was only coach because the school couldn’t afford any higher-authority teachers, Finstock actually confirmed it himself. But he never played, instead he twitched anxiously on the sidelines.

 

Stiles didn’t end up telling his dad about him being on the team until the season was almost over so he could pretend that the disappointment in his father’s eyes was over him telling him too late and not that he didn’t even play. “At least I play more than Greenberg; Finstock hates that dude so much, poor guy,” he joked, slapping his father’s shoulder good-humouredly. His father mercifully didn’t hold the issue, and he never asked about going to games unless Stiles brought it up first.

 

And there was also the blessing of Lydia Martin to grace his Freshman days of high school. His heart still survived the breaking Lydia had bestowed it and he trooped on, completely dedicated and still utterly convinced in their eternal love that he was sure started back in grade school. He had even developed a ten-year plan in a small composition notebook meant for Chemistry homework to assure Lydia that they were completely meant for each other. His only speed-bump was that Lydia was both dating Jackson, who was utterly horrid to Stiles, and had no clue that Stiles even existed.

 

Whatever. Stiles figured it was just incentive to try harder.

 

When Lydia passed in a puff of perfume and plumes of red hair after completely ignoring him as per usual and he was shaking off his defeat, Stiles noticed his dad addressing their principal in a hushed voice down the hall. Though he wasn’t the most stealthy person, he was able to go unnoticed and hide behind a row of lockers to spy on them, holding his backpack behind his back. He peeked his head out and listened, but he didn’t get there in time to actually hear anything, and his father was already dismissing the principal. He put a hand in his pocket and walked in Stiles’s direction.

 

The sheriff caught sight of him, and Stiles snapped up, scratching the back of his head. He hoped it had looked like he wasn’t watching them, but obviously his fidgeting gave him away. “Hey, dad,” he said when his dad walked over to him, giving him that look that told him he wasn’t as sly as he pretended to be.  

 

“What are you doing here, Stiles?” He asked, sticking his hands into the pockets in his pants.

 

Stiles blinked, taken aback. “I go to school here.”

 

“You know what I mean,” his dad told him, crossing his arms and staring him down.  

 

Stiles conceded under his father’s glare, his palms facing outwards. “Just walking around and saw you guys talking in hushed tones; I was curious. You know me. What are _you_ doing here? Is there something wrong?”

 

His dad scoffed; there was always something wrong in his opinion so Stiles is about to rephrase his question when he spoke. “There’s just been a large amount of animal attacks lately. A lot of the time, it’s just teenagers trying to start a damned cult, so I was talking to him about it. But don’t worry, it shouldn’t be too serious. It could be a pack of wolves.”

 

Stiles frowned. “I thought there weren’t any wolves in California.”

 

John nodded, said “Usually there aren’t; there haven’t been signs in years. But anything can happen.” Stiles let himself be pulled into a quick one armed hug. “I’ll see you later. Pay attention in class.”

 

“Dad?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

Stiles fidgeted. “We’re still going to mom’s grave today right?”

 

His dad smiled tight. “Yeah, I’ll meet you there at six.”

 

“Okay. Be careful, dad.”

 

“Always am.”

 

It was hard for him to focus for the rest of the day. Fueled by his spinning thoughts of what the wolves and animal attacks could mean, Stiles spent all of Chemistry searching through his phone for any info. Everything he found lead him nowhere or to cult pages, so his school day ended up feeling oddly counterproductive.

 

As Stiles pulled up into the cemetery parking lot ten minutes before his dad was meant to be there, he fidgeted with the sunflowers tucked into his lap. He locked his car and shoves his keys into his pocket. His mother was buried in a middle plot, so Stiles had to walk relatively far to get there. When he got close enough to see the gravestone, he froze in shock.

 

The dirt over his mom’s grave had been tossed to the side, her gravestone had toppled and was cracked completely in half, her name covered in mud. Stiles’s choked on his words, mouth forming but only a desperate confused noise reached the air. He rushed to the plot, digging his phone out of his pocket and dialing 911. He could see that there’s a hole leading directly to her tombstone, all the way down, but it didn’t seem disturbed in any other way. Just the thought of someone touching his mom’s body  had him feeling like he was going to puke.

 

“Dad,” he breathed into the receiver.

 

There was rustling over the line and talking in the background. “I know I’m a little late, I’ll be there in a few seconds,” his dad muttered, sounding in a rush, and then hung up on him. Stiles swore and tried calling again, but Marie at the front desk told him that his dad had left the station in a hurry to catch up with him and that he shouldn’t use the station as a landline to reach his dad before hanging up on him as well.  He waited amongst the rubble for him, feeling more panicked by the second.

 

His dad’s wry smile morphed into an expression of horror when he finally approached Stiles and took in the scene around him. “What--” he choked out.

 

“Someone dug into it. It was like this when I got here,” Stiles informed him with panicked breaths. “I promise dad, I promise.” He felt frayed, and defensive. The air around him felt heavy, like he could breathe in the dirt. His dad shook his head in horror, dashed to his car, and radioed the station to call two other cops out to scan the area with police dogs.

 

Both dogs went nuts at the grave’s smell, but they couldn’t follow any definite trail.

 

Stiles sat and waited in his car with his head in his hands. “Hey kid,” Carter greeted him, leaning on the open window in Stiles’s Jeep, peering in at him. His normally animated eyebrows were creased down, serious. “We looked at her grave; there wasn’t any kind of tampering with her. The best we’ve got is that they were grave robbers. Your dad said her necklace was missing?”

 

“She was wearing one, yeah,” Stiles confirmed with a tired nod. His mother never took that necklace off. She explained that it was her favorite necklace. He remembered that the blue stone carved in a diamond shape would glow if the light hit it just right. “It wasn’t worth anything though,” he added bitterly.

 

Carter gave him a once over. “Right. Well that’s all I need.” He closed his little notepad that Stiles doubted he was writing anything in anyways.

 

“Thanks Carter,” Stiles said. He couldn’t help feeling sick because someone had stolen from his mother, from her grave. And they had taken the only thing that had meant something to her.

 

“Don’t worry about it. Whatever else they were looking for, it looks like they didn’t find it.”

 

Stiles scoffed. “What else could they have been looking for?” he asked sourly, slamming his hand into the steering wheel.

 

-

 

Stiles was pretty sure that finding the other half of a recently missing body would lead him to whoever dug into his mother’s grave; they had to be the same culprit. And Stiles really had been joking about nearly being killed by an animal in the woods before they had trekked out to search for the grave robbers or the mutilated body, but really.

 

He probably should have brought Scott’s baseball bat with him.

 

Stiles realized this belatedly as the crunching of leaves behind them signalled a foreign approach. He panicked, grabbing Scott’s bicep and fumbling with the flashlight in his hands as he sprinted away, and Scott started to pant trying to keep up, dropping his inhaler and apparently his whole body as well in their rush away, stumbling into a ditch. Stiles turned around a miniscule amount, prepared to dash the other way, stumbling to a stop when he realized he had nowhere to go.

 

 _Shit--_ Stiles plastered on a smile at the flashlight directed straight in his face, waving at the police dogs barking threateningly. “Howdy sheriff.”

 

-

 

Stiles slammed the door to the cruiser closed, the crunch of gravel following his footsteps up to the front door with his dad following straight behind him. Unlocking the door, he prepared himself for a verbal beatdown.  He nearly screeched at the sight of Scott lying down on his couch in the living room when he turned the light on, and his father stormed in with his gun already out, placing the barrel down at the sight of Scott. “Oh, it’s just you.”

 

“Good to see you too sir,” Scott replied tiredly and Stiles smirked. The sheriff looked between the two of them, suspicion written all over his face, but Stiles had nothing to give him because he had no clue either.

 

“Thought you wanted to ‘sleep in for lacrosse tomorrow' and couldn't join Stiles in troublemaking tonight,” the sheriff said, donning the ever so impressive air quotes to mimic Stiles's words earlier, and raised his eyebrows. It was probably suspicious that Stiles was so shocked at Scott’s presence even though he’s showed up randomly before, but his dad doesn’t comment on that fact.

 

“I couldn’t sleep,” Scott explained, and Stiles watched him warily from the doorway, hoping that he wasn’t about to have another asthma attack and wondering how the hell he even got there before they did. His chest rose up with hitched breaths and he grimaced. “I sleep better here than at home when no one is there in case I have an attack. I just wanted to wait for Stiles, too.  Is it okay? I can go home, if you want me to.”

 

The sheriff sighed, knowing that Scott was just trying to be polite and even if he didn’t want to let him stay, it would be rude not to. “I never mind, Scott. I’d rather have you here; it’s dark anyways and you probably rode your bike here right?” Scott nodded immediately.  “You can stay. Make sure to call your mom and let her know though.”

 

Stiles pumped his fist, and John pursed his lips for a minute second, sighing, shaking his head, then trudged up the stairs with his shoulders slumped tiredly. He waved his hand. “Be good, or whatever, you two. Stiles, two weeks.”

 

“No TV?”

 

“Yep.”

 

“Eh,” he shrugged. Could be worse. “Okay, good night!”

 

“Night.”

 

As soon as the stairs stopped creaking with his father’s footsteps, Stiles raced over to the couch, kneeling down next to Scott and slapped him on the head until Scott’s eyes opened again. “Dude, what the _hell_?”

 

“Something happened to me,” Scott whined in pain, like he had been holding the sound in for a long time. He lifted an arm slowly. “Something really weird.”

 

“Yeah, something happened to me too, I saved your _ass,_ almost getting mine kicked in the proc-- wait.” Stiles’s heart sped up, his hands fluttering over the hot skin of Scott’s side that was revealed. The fabric of Scott’s shirt was stained a dark red and looked moist. “Is that _blood?”_ His voice wasn’t loud enough to be a screech, but it was pretty damn close. The cloth of Scott’s shirt stuck to the red and sticky skin of his side when his fingers pinched at it.

 

“You got _bit_ by something, what the hell,” he observed when he lifted the shirt up to look at Scott’s hip and caught sight of multiple puncture wounds in the shape of teeth. It spanned the entire length of Scott’s hipbone and looked way too big to be from an average household dog.

 

“It was fast,” Scott mumbled, and when Stiles looked at the wound, it didn’t look deep enough to worry about, in fact, it looked like it was already healing. “I didn’t even see it.” Scott’s breathing was dragged out and heavy, so Stiles rubbed along his arm in an attempt to comfort him.

 

Stiles bit his lip in thought. “It was probably an animal; something really _big,_ but it must have been."

 

“Yeah, I think I saw that much. But,” Scott froze, his eyebrows crinkled to the middle of his forehead. “It looked like a _dog.”_ Stiles checked out the wound again with pursed lips.

 

“Must have been Clifford-sized then,” Stiles muttered offhandedly, reaching a hand to lift Scott up off of the couch by one arm and help him up the stairs. He looked up at him over his shoulder. “The most you have to be worried about is rabies right now. Do you feel a little crazy? Wait.” He held up a finger. “More than usual?”

 

“Ha ha,” Scott replied drily. He smacked Stiles’s side but clutched on when Stiles threatened to let him go.

 

They cleaned Scott up, patching up his bite-mark with bandages from Stiles’s closet, he took three Tylenol, and Stiles lead him to his bed where he slumped over and fell asleep within seconds. “Damn,” Stiles muttered into his pillow before passing out himself, one foot hanging off of the edge of the mattress and twitching in his sleep.

 

-

 

When he woke up to his blaring alarm, Scott was gone and his phone was buzzing with a new text. When he unlocked his phone, there were three more texts waiting for him. One was an automatic text from his dad reminding him not to be late for school that had been sent just a minute previously and the other three were from Scott that he had forgotten to read through the night before. He read through them then, curled up and still blinking his eyes owlishly at the sunlight sifting through the shades of his bedside window.

 

(Sep 2, 2009 9:14 PM)

_Where are u_

 

(Sep 2, 2009 9:14 PM)

_Stiles? really dude answer_

 

(Sep 2, 2009 9:19 PM)

_something freaky happened_

_coming over_

 

So it _wasn’t_ a dream then. Huh. Stiles stretched his arms out to the side, shifting his shoulder muscles and sighing when the joints popped, feeling strangely calm. Then he paused, looked to his side at the empty bed. “For the _love_ of--”

 

He felt the sudden surge of panic and was up in a couple of seconds, sprinting down his stairs and dialing violently on his phone. Scott could be bleeding on his kitchen floor-- and no he wasn’t there, Stiles realized as he searched the house, but still. The dial tone clicked off and Scott said “Stiles” into the phone, and that alone made Stiles’s heart resume pace.

 

“Scott, shit Scott, where’d you _go_?” Scott sounded confused over the phone, and something shifted over the line, muffling it for a second.

 

“Mom needed a ride to work, cause the car broke down,” Scott eventually said, as if it was simple and totally not his fault for scaring Stiles to death. Stiles stopped in his tracks, leaning his forehead against the cool metal frame of his Jeep.

 

“Jesus Christ, let me know that next time, I thought you became a zombie and went to go and eat the town,” which okay, that wasn’t totally true, but it could always have been a possibility. Scott was his bro, he didn’t want to leave him behind.

 

“Sorry,” and Scott sounded so sheepish that of course Stiles knew he was already forgiven. Stiles put the phone down for a few moments to get dressed quickly (he couldn’t afford to be late to school again) and threw his backpack into his back seat. “But _oh,_ I also have something to tell you.”

 

“Yeah, what’s up?” he put his phone on speaker once he was in his car and backing out of his driveway, nearly throwing it out the window when Scott spoke next.

 

“There’s no bite mark anymore.” The phone crackled as Stiles lost signal because he was going through a stretch of forest on a long and winding road. Stiles probably could have gotten away with thinking the signal broke and he had misheard Scott, but even he couldn’t convince himself of that much.

 

“ _What?”_ Stiles hissed with his hands clenching white around the steering wheel, spinning his car around and already headed in the direction of Scott’s house. Screw school. “I’m coming to get you, I have to see this.”

 

“There’s not even a scar. It’s like it wasn’t even there.”

 

Over the phone, Scott sounded hazy, disbelieving, like he was convinced he was still in a dream, so Stiles make a loud non-affirmative noise in reply. “Nope, for sure not; I still have blood on my couch that will never ever come out and I’ll have to explain that to my dad, I can’t believe he never noticed it, shit. Hold on, I’ll be there in a second.” He pulled into Scott’s driveway, tearing the keys out of the ignition, jumping out of his car and nearly tripping in his haste, scuffing his shoes on the blacktop. “Scott!” he squeaked the end of the word, dashing up the first few front stairs. Scott was waiting on his porch, wearing a ratty Batman t-shirt that Stiles realized was his after about two seconds, and waved his hand impatiently for him to follow into the house.

 

“I love that shirt, dude,” Stiles complained as he followed Scott inside because, _priorities._ Scott scoffed at him.

 

“I’ll give it back tomorrow, I just needed something that wasn’t covered in old blood to wear when I came home.” He slammed the glass door shut behind them and it rattled dangerously against the wood from how hard the shove was, and Stiles spun to watch it before looking curiously back at Scott.

 

Stiles shuddered. “Our lives have reached a point where we can say your shirt was covered in _blood_ calmly _;_ are you concerned about that?”

 

Scott thought about it, shrugged his shoulders while pulling his best possible sturgeon face. “Naw. As long as I’m not dying.”

 

Stiles felt his shoulders relax, and he smiled with mirth. " _Great._ Now let’s see this thing.” He rubbed his hands together in expectation as Scott peeled away what seemed to be new gauze and revealed--

 

Nothing. Stiles blinked a few times and touched at the slightly pale skin of his hip. “Wow. Uh you weren’t kidding?”

 

Scott looked confused, a little offended. “Why would I joke around?”

 

Stiles threw his arms out wide. “I don’t know, but you had a huge wound just last night and it seemed to just-- just _poof--_ disappear. So either this was something like a dream, or it’s a supernatural occurrence. Maybe you’re an alien or something.” He couldn’t help but admit that there was something about the situation that was intriguing to him, and if that made him a horrible person, well. He already kind of knew that.

 

He looked up to see Scott glaring down at him, and his grin flattened. “Okay, maybe not an alien. But this definitely really weird. Possibly unhuman.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“But what could it be?” Scott’s couch has always made a horrid squeaking noise if anyone threw themselves too hard onto it, and when Stiles collapsed down, it scared the both of them with its noise.

 

“Ouch,” Scott complained, pulling at his ears. His neck did some kind of weird twitch thing that tossed his hair back and forth. “That was loud.”

 

Stiles grunted, readjusting himself on the cushions, but Scott’s head motion didn’t escape his notice. “Your couch, dude,” he pointed out accusingly. He pulled up Scott’s shirt and looked at the bare skin again. “You know what we have to do now, right?”

 

Scott looked confused and shrugged; Stiles smirked.

 

-

 

“I really don’t think we should have skipped school, Stiles,” Scott struggled to keep up behind him, stumbling over the ridges of the forest and the leaves crunching under their feet. Stiles turned around, his hands in the pockets of his hoodie and narrowed his eyes.

 

“I want to look for _answers,_ dude, and you don’t want your mom to spend another fifty dollars because you dropped your inhaler in the woods on a school night when you were supposed to be sleeping, do you?” Scott wilted under Stiles’s glare, like he always did, and shook his head, abashed.

 

“Not really, but I can’t breathe out here anyways,” he complained, and rubbed at his chest. “If we don’t find it, I’ll also die.”

 

Stiles was moving to flick behind Scott’s ear and tell him that he was speaking loser talk, but his arms flailed as a rough voice behind them sounded out, saying “Were you looking for this?”

 

He could barely turn around in time to see the inhaler being thrust at him, and he didn’t catch it either way because he was busy following the path that it had made, gaze trailing up to a broad chest and his hands stopped working in all aspects, traitorously letting the inhaler fall to the ground. The face of the person who threw it took away the capability to use his mouth, and he stuttered with open lips, breathing out once.

 

Dark eyebrows framed burnished green eyes and were curved downward to form an incredibly sour expression, with a deep frown to emphasize it. The man seemed to notice Stiles was staring and looked at him like there was something wrong with him. And while Stiles knew that was true, he also had the feeling that perhaps it was the man’s default expression. It felt like it was familiar, besides the fact that he got that glare from nearly everybody.

 

He breathed in the cold air and felt a burning in his nostrils like he wasn’t quite breathing correctly before.

 

Thankfully, Scott wasn’t affected as much by the stranger (or maybe he just had more self-control) and he asked “where did you find that?” picking the inhaler up from the ground, slowly wiping the dirt from the plastic.

 

Stiles shoved his hands into his pockets, tilting his head as the guy looked his way with an intense gaze.

 

The man’s expression seemed to become even less kind when he regarded Scott, which didn’t even seem possible, but sure enough. He scowled. “I found it when you two were running through my family’s _private_ property.”

 

Stiles backed up, raising his hands up, and it all clicked in his brain. “No, wait,” he said, approaching him and pointing in the general direction of Derek’s chest, still keeping his distance. He’d have to thank his dad later for making him wary of strangers, no matter how familiar they seemed to him-- and then he started because _that’s_ what had made him freeze at the first sight of him. “You’re a _Hale_?”

 

He watched and waited for a change in expression, and was saddened to see a slight decrease in the anger lines on the stranger’s forehead (right, dead family, shit), but he nodded slightly. “Yeah. Derek Hale.” Stiles could see the resemblance to Talia: Derek held himself the same way, and from what he could remember, they both looked as if they held the weight of the world on their shoulders.

 

“Whoa, I saw you that night--” Scott began, and Stiles hastily slapped him on the back of his head. Scott silenced himself after shouting in shock, wide eyes staring at Stiles for his next move.

 

“Shut up, Scott.” Stiles clenched his teeth, willing himself to relax. His vision was abnormally clear, like the last lingering bits of tiredness were gone. “Well, we were just looking for this because Scott over here dropped it on his little jog, but we’ll be going now. We didn’t know we were trespassing, and we won’t be doing it again.” He turned his head to shout over his shoulder, “by the way, you have a wild animal problem, buddy.”

 

“Or it’s a really big house dog,” Scott called as well, and squawked when Stiles squeezed harder at his bicep. Thankfully, Scott didn’t say any more because Derek really didn’t seem to like him all that much anyways and might just decide to kill them then and there. He looked capable of doing it, and probably more than willing.

 

Derek was staring at him intently with something in his gaze that Stiles wasn’t ready to decipher just then. “Thanks again, Derek! It won’t happen again!” Stiles refused to look back, basically dragging Scott back until he was in the Jeep. He drove him home with his back sticky against the seat with sweat and a painful throbbing in his head.

 

-

 

Stiles shut his lights off, but there remained a dim glow that Stiles noticed. After a few minutes of sitting on his bed, he realized that his window was open and filtering the moonlight through. Slowly, he trudged his way over and shut it, dragging the curtains closed.

 

His head throbbed something awful, and his muscles felt cramped, achy like they were contorted the wrong way. When he laid down, his eyes blurred slightly as if in tiredness, though his mind was racing a mile a minute. Intertwining his fingers, he extended his arms to try and stretch the sudden soreness away.

 

For a long while-- it could have been hours-- he laid awake, staring at his ceiling and wiggling his toes. Rolling over, he stared into the vast darkness toward where his curtain was. He dragged himself up with his blanket like a shawl and pushed his curtains aside.

 

When he opened the window, the cold air enveloped him and his sight trained on the moon, bright overhead in the night sky. He pulled the blanket tighter around himself.

 

The forest was visible from there, a dark outline of trees. Stiles watched it, his shoulders relaxing, and breathed in the clean air. The wind jostled everything, in a calm drift.

 

Eventually, Stiles fell asleep on his windowsill, the moonlight shining onto his face, and the wind whispering nothings into his ears.

 

-

 

Stiles starts running into Derek, suddenly after that. A lot.

 

It wasn’t really a surprise; he’d be shocked that he _hadn’t_ seen him at least twice a week before. Beacon Hills really wasn’t all that big of a place, and a lack of new (well not new, but mostly forgotten) eye candy for the old women sitting outside of the general store would be very disappointing.

 

The first time was in the library, the day after they had officially met, and Stiles stumbled with the five new books that he would need for his English research paper (that he wasn’t even going to read, _good god,_ but the bibliography called for at least 3 book sources _)_ because Derek was around a corner of the bookshelf. He was staring broodily at a stack of novels and wearing his leather jacket that looked so worn that it must have been through some major hell in its lifetime.Derek’s hand swiftly snatched a book in midair nearly without looking, and Stiles mostly focused on not falling to his death before he raced over and slammed the books onto a flimsy table.

 

“Christ,” he said in surprise, blinking wildly at Derek, who had followed him to drop the book he’d saved onto the pile.

 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to, scare you?” Derek looked like he wasn’t sure why he was apologizing. Which was fair enough. But it took Stiles a bit of time calming his racing heart to speak.

 

“Shit dude, yeah that’s okay, I’m just like,” he flicked his fingers back and forth to enunciate, “ _twitchy_. I didn’t expect to see you here, is all.” Derek just didn’t seem like the person to sit in a library and read all day. But, that was something that he would pay to see. He looked like he would rock reading glasses like no other.

 

“In Beacon Hills?” Derek squinted one eye, watching him, thankfully not catching up to Stiles’s assumption that he doesn’t read, or that Stiles was marvelling at how attractive he was. Again.  “I live here now.”

 

Stiles spluttered attractively. “Hopefully not in that house, because dude, you could use some serious renovating.” He pointed down with both hands in a collapsing motion. “I’m pretty sure the floors are about to cave in. It doesn’t seem liveable at all.”

 

And there he went with his stupid mouth, because now Derek seriously looked much less up for conversation than before, his eyes shuttering and blocking all traces of friendliness. He backed up a step, and Stiles’s eyes flickered down to his jean-clad legs and watched them work under the fabric because it was easier than looking him in the eyes.

 

“Yes, there.” Derek said, mouth fixed tight. “I’m trying to make it _liveable_ again.” With that he walked away, leaving Stiles standing awkwardly in the middle of the library with at least three people around him angry at  the surprised noise he’d made.

 

That night, Stiles woke up in a pool of his own sweat with his limbs tangled in the blankets, blinking away the image of fangs biting into his flesh, spilling his blood. It took him a few hours to get back to sleep, and his rest didn’t last for long until he was up again, feeling troubled, so he powered up his laptop and googled _strange effects from animal bites._

 

When that search bore no fruit, Stiles instead tried _animal bite healed within hours,_ and there was still nothing. Rubbing at his tired eyes, he kept typing in different things, and when his results eventually lead him to an article about werewolves, he grunted in frustration, closing the lid.  He sent a text to Scott along with the link to the page:

 

(Sep 8, 2009 4:46 AM)

_Congrats buddy, you’re a nocturnal monster._

 

(Sep 8, 2009 4:50 AM)

_Very funny_

 

(Sep 8, 2009 4:51 AM)

_Just remember not to eat all of the raw meat in your house, and you should be fine!_

 

He laughed quietly and decided to try and get at least an hour of sleep before school. After another half-hour spent reading over the articles again, he fell asleep with his face pressed against the stagnant black screen of his phone.

 

Stiles groaned when he woke up with foggy eyes and a dry throat. Thankfully, it was just in time for him to get ready for school. He managed to roll out of bed, slip a wrinkled flannel, buttoned unevenly, and throw his scattered schoolbooks into his small tattered backpack before tumbling out of the front door.

 

On a coffee and McDonalds run that morning to make sure he survived the day, Stiles pulled into the parking lot next to a sleek, black Camaro. Stiles whistled, swung his keys around his pointer finger as he pushed the door in and stepped inside where it was significantly cooler, but he froze in the little section between doorways with the door half-opened.

 

“It’s too early for this shit,” he muttered to himself when he caught sight of the dark hair and corner of one thick eyebrow. He didn’t notice the old woman sitting and giving him the stink-eye because he was letting the cold air out, and that’s mostly due to Derek Hale standing in line in front of him.

 

Derek didn’t even seem like he _could_ eat McDonald’s because he was literally so ripped. Rain probably followed direct paths down his abs. Stiles grimaced. _Come on._ This was not fair to anybody else because Derek was just standing there in sweatpants and a sopping wet, sweat-soaked undershirt, and he was giving almost every other guy in there a _complex._ His muscles bulged as he stood in line with his legs primly held straight and not fidgeting on his heels like normal people did, like Stiles did.

 

Stiles almost screamed “public indecency!” into the sky, but he was pretty sure the manager, who was a young woman, and whom he could also see ogling Derek's chest from behind the counter, was _not_ about to kick him out.

 

There was also a jab he could make about professionalism in the workplace, but he just shook his head.

 

As Stiles finally let the door close behind his back, Derek turned his head just a little bit, his mouth twisting in the smallest of grins without even looking at him, as if he’d heard Stiles and was finding his internal crisis hilarious. Stiles resolved to be as nice as he could be, because he was a fucking _gem._

 

He thought back to his less-than-necessary comment the other day and grimaced. Along with that, Derek could still possibly report him for trespassing a second time on his property.

 

Which was less important on his list of priorities anyways because the guy didn’t really look or seem like he smiled too often. So really, being nice was the least he could do. That was his first reason for fixing his shirt sleeves and following behind Derek in line with a grin.

 

“Well hello, what a coincidence seeing you again,” he said cheerily, leaning his body inwards by hopping on his toes.

 

Derek grunted, though his lips were still just a bit upturned, betraying him. “Hi,” Derek answered, watching him closely out of the corner of his eye but not fully turning to face him. He wiped at his forehead, and Stiles realized he was still breathing hard like he’d run straight in through the door after a marathon. It _would_ explain the amount of sweat soaking through his shirt. Stiles pointed at Derek’s stomach, where his shirt was sticking to his abdomen.

 

“So it’s hot out, huh?” He chuckled awkwardly, motioned to the expanse of Derek’s torso.

 

Derek nodded, though, eyeing him calmly. “I just went on a run. I go every morning,” He said, looking down at himself.

 

“Oh!” Stiles’s voice rose up sharply, and he coughed. Derek eyes flicked back up calmly under his thick eyelashes and that made Stiles fumble over his words even more. “That’s-- uh that’s cool then, is it kind of like zen, getting in the zone sort of thing, or an exercise thing because dude you don’t really need it that much.” Derek seemed content letting him simmer in his embarrassment, and raised an eyebrow.

 

The girl behind the desk, nearly bubbling with excitement at finally getting to take Derek’s order, called his attention by clearing her throat. Derek ordered quickly to her obvious disappointment, just a small green tea, and waited politely for Stiles to order as well. Stiles noticed that the girl was now much less polite than she’d been with Derek so he made sure to pay all in change for his five dollar meal.

 

“It _is_ a relaxation technique, I think,” Derek answered truthfully, and they stood to wait for their orders as Stiles shot the girl daggers behind her back. She was still angrily sorting the change into the proper placements. "I'm generally kind of stressed. It’s nice to run sometimes. The forest is relaxing to me sometimes.” He made a serious expression, and Stiles felt like the gears should have cogged something together just then, but didn’t process all of the way, so he nodded.

 

"Yeah, yeah totally, I get that. I do the same thing with Scott. Walk through the forest, I mean." He cringed, because it probably wasn’t best to bring up Scott in casual conversation when he seemed to hate the boy, but Derek didn’t react save for a sour expression. “Which we won’t do now that we know it’s private property.

 

That was totally a lie, but Derek didn’t call him out on it, just nodded. “We don’t own the entire forest,” Derek pointed out.

 

“I know, I know.” Stiles snatched up his to-go bag when it’s set, steaming, on the counter, inhaling the scent of too-salted fries (because they don't have a time limit on breakfast unlike surrounding towns, thanks to his dad needing burgers early in the morning and his power in the town) and took a large sip of his almost-too-hot coffee. “This should get me through the day now. It was like the people who invented coffee knew that one day I would be codependent on it or something.”

 

Derek made a noise that sounded like a scoff and swigged at his own drink, and Stiles noticed the time on the digital clock hanging on the wall. “Shoot, gotta run.”  He backed up to the door, shouldering it open and shook the bag in his hands as a replacement for waving. “See you around, Derek.”

 

“Sure,” Derek replied with an assertive nod, making it sound like a promise.  

 

-

 

Stiles spotted Scott waiting in the throng just inside of the doors to the school where his locker was, and grinned. “I brought you food,” he mused and tossed the bag. Scott caught it nimbly, immediately tore it open, ate the fries. He moaned obscenely into the bag.

 

Stiles fished his chemistry book out of his locker and stuffed his lacrosse bag as best he could into the confined space. The best he could do still resulted in his strap getting caught between the door; he slammed the locker shut and kicked at it to keep it closed. “Did you see Derek Hale today?” Scott asked out of nowhere. Stiles shot up from where he was lying against the metal.

 

“What? Did _you_?”

 

“No,” Scott answered. “I just have this weird feeling that you did. It’s like-- I can smell him.”

 

Stiles made a face at him and sniffed at his own armpits. He couldn’t recognize anything odd about his own scent, and he narrowed his eyes. “What does that mean? You can smell _people_ now?”

 

“It’s like I’m just aware of it, I don’t actively search it out.”

 

Stiles’s mind flickers. “So wait. You can smell Derek? What does he even smell like? _Au deu asshole_?”

 

“ _Stiles,”_ Scott groaned, looking in complete misery. Stiles noticed that his nose did a twitching motion every few seconds and he met Scott’s frantic expression.

 

“Hey, you just need to stay calm,” Stiles rushed to say. Raising his hands up, he felt like he wasn’t doing too well at calming him down. “We’ll figure it out.”

 

And Stiles really hoped he wasn’t lying.

 

-

 

His vision blurred into focus and all Stiles could focus on after taking his environment in was the fact that his dad was going to kill him. Stiles moaned into his steering wheel and the pungent smell of smoke burned his nostrils even as they pooled with blood. “Shit,” he moaned in pain, pained fingers crumbling dried blood out of his hair as he rubbed his temple. His jeans ran red, and Stiles wasn’t aware enough yet to be able to tell if the blood was from his nose or if he’d cut his legs open too.

 

His memory came back in snippets. He hadn’t been speeding, but he’d been close, trying to get home before his dad because leaving him alone at home usually resulted in his father binge-eating unhealthy things. He had avoided the first animal dodging across the road, large as a wolf and a deep chocolate brown in color. The second one had come out of nowhere and dashed right in front of his car, and despite his best attempts, he couldn’t swerve out of the way and stay on the road at the same time, and the last thing he remembered was the crunching of the bark of the tree and the squeal of metal before it all had went black.

 

Now that he was awake, he frantically pawed at the door to his Jeep, slick hands slipping sickly against the plastic. When it only budged open two inches, Stiles screamed in frustration and punched feebly at the cracked window. Slivers of glass rained in and Stiles flinched back.

 

It wasn’t dark yet outside, so he must not have been out long, but he knew to get out of the car as soon as possible, and he searched for alternative exit options. Head swimming, he unbuckled himself with shaking hands and crawled over the console to the other side of his car. He could smell burning metal and tried not to gag. When he pushed, the passenger’s side of the Jeep wasn’t bent in any way or obscured so it opened easily. He felt a rush of relief and Stiles tossed himself onto the ground and he crawled until he was relatively far away from the wreckage just in case it exploded.  

 

Luckily, his phone was undamaged in his back pocket, and his dad answered after three rings. “Dad,” he said quietly into his phone, and his voice was nasally because of the blood clogging his nose. He hoped it wasn’t broken, but he could tell that he wasn’t bleeding too heavily anymore, and it gave him hope for his complexion. When his dad asked what was wrong, Stiles told him “I don’t know where I am.”

 

“Stiles?” His dad said with restrained panic, and Stiles wanted to reassure him that he was fine, but his head felt stuffy and slow and he could hear him over the line sitting up.

 

“My car hit a tree,” he supplied, searching the road for any clue to where he was. When he couldn’t find a road sign, he said “I’m in the woods by the Hale house but my Jeep is wrecked in the front so I can’t drive. I banged my head pretty bad. Think my nose is broken too,” he complained, lightly pinching at the bridge and groaning.

 

“Stay there,” his father ordered, and there was rustling over the phone. He had probably been taking an emergency nap on their large chair and Stiles felt a surge of guilt. “I’ll be there soon Stiles; you stay on the main road.”

 

Stiles made an affirmative noise. “Sure thing boss, I will stay right here.”

 

Instead of laughing, his dad sighed and hung up the phone. Stiles stared, offended, at the receiver but then stuffed it back into his pocket.

 

Of course, Stiles didn’t stay still for long, and paced down the path back to his Jeep to grab a spare shirt. He was pressing his old shirt to his nose to wipe up some of the blood when a whimper that was slightly quieter than the hissing of his dead engine startled him. He raced to the back of his car over to his driver’s side, skittering to a stop when he saw an animal perched on the ground.

 

The wolf was sleeping on its side, inhaling deep and quick and shaking on the exhale. Stiles noticed it and could identify it as the dog he had almost run over. It had brown shaggy hair and its paws were marred with blood. Throwing caution to the wind, Stiles approached the animal. “Hey big guy,” he murmured, looking for any wounds on its feet. “You’re okay.” The dog’s eyes opened, starling him. It leaned up onto its stomach, studying him with curious eyes. “You won’t eat me, right?”

 

A loud vehicle honking on the road startled both him and the wolf into attention, and it growled. It jumped up onto its haunches, slumping down so its muzzle pressed into the dirt and it growled dangerously. Stiles jumped back. “Ha, right. Gonna step away from you now. You wild thing. That could eat me but won’t, because we’re cool. Right?”

 

He debated running, but the wolf shuddered and stumbled at least two steps towards him with a sudden strained whimper. Stiles wanted to move and help but his track record wasn’t exactly good with helping wounded animals-- but in his defense he hadn’t known that squirrels were that defensive of their territory and it was _mean_.  

 

With a groaning noise, the wolf shuddered again, seemed to _shed_ at an alarming rate, its fur peeling off in clumps.  Stiles was too stunned to do anything but watch as its limbs rearranged themselves and grew layers of tanned skin instead of brown fur that had somehow sucked back into the boy’s body. When he blinked next, Scott was kneeling on all fours on the forest floor completely naked, panting into the dirt.

 

Stiles stared, eyes wide. “We are so completely _fucked,”_ he exclaimed in his gasp.

 

Scott sagged down to the ground and buried his face into crumpling leave, shoulders slumped in exhaustion. “You’re telling me,” he croaked. His face looked much more calm than Stiles felt. "Are you okay? Your face is bleeding."

 

Stiles felt a flare of anger because Scott didn’t mean to hurt him but he did, and normal people remember hurting their friends, but at that moment Stiles heard his dad calling for him in the woods.  He snapped his gaze back to his friend, still looking dumbfounded and covered in dirt, and then threw the blood-covered t-shirt at him, hissing “ _Cover up.”_ Stiles shoved his Jeep’s trunk open and threw him another extra pair of emergency pants from his bag. Scott had managed to pull the pants on and over his hips just before Stiles’s dad, followed by probably the entirety of the police department-- _Jesus Christ,_ he needed to discuss his dad’s priorities regarding law enforcement-- rushed towards him.

 

“Dad, hey, so about this--” Stiles's hands flailed as the sheriff pulled him into a bone-crushing hug. He almost made a comment about the blood staining his dad’s clothes, but decided against it and hastily pressed a hand onto his back in return.

 

“Kid,” he exclaimed in Stiles's ear. “How do you even get into this much trouble?” It took everything Stiles had not to let out a bitter laugh, though it would reassure his dad it would probably also piss him off more.

 

Stiles eventually sagged in his grip, said “I have no clue. I’ve been asking myself that a lot lately though.” He spared a glance at Scott who was frantically pacing now, around and around them. Stiles’s dad seemed to notice Scott at the same time and unglued himself from Stiles to place a reassuring hand on his shoulder.  

 

“I thought I told you to stay on the main road.”

 

Stiles looked around at what was definitely not the main road. “Whoops?”

 

It was hard explaining why he hadn’t mentioned Scott in the phone call earlier, so Stiles flailed for an excuse, stopped by Scott's hand on his leg. Scott told the sheriff that he had woken up before Stiles and was looking for help when Stiles had returned to consciousness. Their story was able to hold water since Scott’s side of the car received no damage when Stiles’s had, so he got hurt less. Stiles thanked everything that Scott was able to think of it so quickly, since his head was still foggy.

 

Stiles was ushered by a medic to an ambulance waiting for them back on the road. Scott and his dad followed close behind, the former wrapped in a scratchy hospital blanket and still shivering. Stiles felt the same unshakable chill in his bones and could only rub at his own arms until they were raw.

 

The paramedic looked Stiles over in the back seat of the ambulance. Nothing was broken, and he also didn’t have a concussion so that was a plus. The medic was just as surprised at Scott’s condition and Stiles chuckled awkwardly, stumbling through an explanation about how lucky he always was.

 

Stiles was  just hopping from the back of the ambulance when he spotted none other than Derek, pulling up in a sleek, sexy-as-hell camaro and approaching the group of them, wearing jeans and a green v-neck. He looked a mild type of livid--another expression that Stiles found difficult to explain. “What the hell is he doing here?” he asked his dad, who gave him a strange look.

 

“Your car crashed on his property, I had to alert him in case there was any damage. You know him?” His dad looked between them, back and forth. Derek said nothing.

 

Stiles swallowed. “Yeah, I saw him around town, ran into him at the library, that kind of thing.” Derek was staring at him, and he averted his gaze, looking down at the ground and scuffing the ground with the toe of his shoe. He didn't feel bad about lying to his dad, because what he had said was technically the truth. Well, the truth with some things left out. He didn’t think it was a lie of omission either, because beyond his thoughts, there was nothing else to tell.

 

“Is everyone okay?” Derek asked them, and Stiles nodded when he looked back up, dragging out of his thoughts whip-fast. He blinked a few times, and then his vision cleared up.

 

His voice sounded strained, even to himself when he answered, “We’re all peachy.”

 

-

 

A week later, Stiles held a damp rag to his bottom lip, breathed in as he looked out of his window. Bruising blossomed over his cheek where it had struck the wall, stretched too far as Scott had pushed, held him there. He could feel the phantom breaths running over his neck, a growl extending building against his skin with the harsh tickle of teeth.

 

“Don’t.” The teeth reached to his jugular, poised to bite. Stiles remembered the flash of red that he’d never seen before, reflecting in Scott's eyes. _“Scott.”_

 

The hold had loosened, and his chair was still on the floor where Scott had trampled it over to get away from him, to get distance between the two. Now Scott was sitting on his bed, eyes back to his murky brown color, filled to the brim with regret. Stiles would laugh at Scott’s ability to look so attacked when he was the one who had almost Hannibaled out on his neck. He would laugh if it was even slightly funny.

 

Stiles couldn’t look at him yet, couldn’t look anywhere but outside. The cut on his lip cracked and bled anew as he agitated the skin.  “There has to be something to explain this...” _To stop it_ hung in the open air, because Stiles couldn’t bring himself to say it. It could mean killing Scott; he would _never-_ -

 

“I know,” Scott said to him, quiet and submissive. Stiles wondered what it might feel to be dominant over a werewolf-- the power to control the life and the deaths of others.

 

Stiles could see the trees outside, they rustled with the movement of the wind. Stiles wondered what other animals could be out there to kill him, ones that were waiting outside during the night. A chill swept over him at the thought of Scott being the source of that fear, the fear that children have of monsters out in the world, and that parents tucking them in and assuring them of no danger are horrifyingly wrong.

 

Scott hunched down, limbs folded together, the silence rang into the night.

 


	3. Chapter 3

“No thank you dude, I don’t want to hear any more about Allison, because you’ve been talking about her for the past  _ twenty minutes _ and I really need to wash the smell of death off of me.” He waited while Scott rambled a question over the line; he could assume what he said without listening to it. “ _ Because _ unlike  _ someone _ who somehow magically became a God of lacrosse overnight,  _ I _ still completely got my ass kicked today.” Kicking off his muddy shoes, Stiles slumped through his front door. There was still bruising littering his face from the crash-- his nose still hurt when he breathed too hard sometimes. 

 

“I missed a shot that Greenberg threw.  _ Greenberg.  _ The kid is only higher than me on Finstock’s shit-list because I blamed him for that prank Freshman year. My life is terrible.” He tried to move his leg that was thrown over the couch, and groaned when it refused the motion, then twisted his ankle around in circles over and over again. 

 

There was a pregnant pause, then Scott muttered, “So do you think I impressed her today?” 

 

Stiles made a motion like he was strangling Scott over the phone. “Listen, I’ll talk to you later.” 

 

He hung up the phone and rolled off of the couch to the floor, moaning into the carpet. Eventually, he forced his aching muscles to move until he was standing, walking to the bathroom with a towel slung around his waist. He flicked the switch on the wall to turn the fan on and stepped into the shower when it was nearing hot enough so he could ease into the burning temperature. 

 

Stiles made sure to take longer in the shower, washing the dirt off of his legs and ankle bones where it had stuck, nodding his head to the music. He reached a hand past the curtain of the shower and changed the song to one that reverberated in time with the beat of the water. Eventually, everything was off of his mind except the task of showering. 

 

Stiles worried at his lip, debating his time until his dad got home. The soft song that was playing faded out and an intense drum beat replaced it. 

 

_ Make me your Maria _

_ I'm already on my knees _

 

He ran his fingers down the planes of his stomach, then curled them around his dick, squeezing and pulling until he tossed his head back into the tiles. The slickness of the shower helped him build up a steady rhythm.  Stiles was more rough than usual, not wasting time to build up because he was so strung up over  _ something _ , though he had no clue what that was. His fatigued muscles shook with the effort of keeping himself up off the ground, and he groaned while his heart beat through his chest. 

 

_ You had Jesus on your breath _

_ And I caught him in mine _

_ Sweating our confessions _

_ The undone and the divine _

 

His palm tracked hot and slippery over his own skin and he choked out his breaths as steam clouded the glass doors of the shower. He had nothing to grab onto for support so his slick fingers grappled at the wet tiles, sliding down, and his chest heaved. 

_ This is his body _

_ This is his blood _

_ Such selfish prayers, _

_ and I can’t get enough _

 

Stiles’s back curled sharply as green eyes flashed in his vision when they clenched tight closed-- green eyes and a long neck that he wanted to bite, strong hands that could hold him to a bed and keep him in place. His hand slammed against the glass door and a shout was torn from his throat. There was the booming noise of the shampoo bottles flying off of the tub, and Stiles’s muscles _burned,_ causing him to choke back an overwhelmed sob. The muscles in his legs trembled in tempo with the music and his heartbeat, and he heaved in his next few breaths, unable to open his eyes until he was completely spent. Stiles found that the images in his mind wouldn’t go away, and his cock gave another violent jerk. “ _Fuck.”_

 

Refusing to think about what on earth had just happened, Stiles stepped out and dried off, rubbing until his skin stung. After dressing, throwing on sweatpants and a too-tight t-shirt, he collapsed boneless onto the couch, feeling physically relaxed but still deeply unsettled at the fact that he had just jerked off to the thought of  _ Derek,  _ a complete stranger. He’d known the guy’s mom better than he’d known him for crying out loud. 

 

“He was hot. There’s nothing wrong with finding someone hot,” he mumbled as an excuse between bites of potato chips, spewing a few onto the carpet, and reaching to grab them, flailing to the floor when the door right to his left was knocked on, loud. “What?” he asked, throwing the door open once he had flung himself up, wiping at his mouth. 

 

His jaw dropped when he saw Derek, looking about ready to tear through Stiles’s doorway if Stiles hadn’t opened the door just then. “Derek?” 

 

_ What the fuck?  _

 

“What the fuck.” He almost smacked himself because, yeah, that was some etiquette that his dad would give him shit for if he were here. But right then he wasn’t exactly sure that Derek wasn’t planning on murdering him or something. Because his expression was distinctly that at first sight; murderous. 

 

“I don’t have any time right now, where is Scott?” Stiles stared at him, still having his internal crisis. “ _ Stiles,”  _ Derek stressed, snapping him out of it. His frantic expression, void of the anger that usually accompanied any other emotion, was what finally caught all of Stiles’s attention. But Stiles was still so confused that he became hyperfocused on Derek’s eyes instead of on his words.

 

Stiles felt himself blinking wildly in confusion, and when Derek reached to touch him, he jerked back on instinct, throwing his hands up, palms out. “Whoa-ho there! Is this a kidnap in the making, cause dude, my dad is the sheriff if you didn’t already know and he’ll have the whole town’s police force after you because I can  _ scream;  _ I can unhinge my jaw for extra acoustics-- and how do you even know my name anyways--”

 

“Stiles, shut up, please,” Derek muttered, his eyes shutting in what looked for a painful way. And oddly enough, Stiles actually did. Soon he was about to speak despite Derek’s order, but Derek raised a hand to stop him. “I can’t really explain it all right now, but I’m not here to kidnap you. You’re not even a kid.” 

 

It made Stiles’s chest heave out in resistance because, hey, he’s the one who showed up on Stiles’s doorstep here. “Technicalities. Teen-napping, then.”

 

Derek rolled his eyes at him. Stiles wondered if it hurts his eyes to do that so often. Maybe he doesn’t do it as often when he’s not around Stiles, though. “Listen to what I’m telling you,” Derek advanced, gripping onto his arm almost tight enough to hurt, almost on the precipice of etching bruises into his skin. His eyes flashed dangerously, and Stiles couldn’t move with the conviction of his glare. His irises looked blue in the sun instead of the natural green, which couldnt have been right. “You are in danger right now.” 

 

It felt a bit overdramatic, to be honest. “How exactly could I be in danger?” Stiles huffed irritably. “What about Scott?” Now he was itching to get his phone and call the cops. That or the asylum. But he can’t pull his arm away from Derek’s vice-like grip and something in his gaze stopped Stiles from completely blowing his words off.

 

“Scott. Scott’s a werewolf, Stiles.” Derek said, like it was so simple, let him go. 

 

Stiles crossed his arms across his chest. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” But he eyed Derek in interest because he was  _ right,  _ and if he knew something, well. He might have been more helpful to Stiles than he’d thought. More helpful than a pretty face.

 

“ _ Stiles _ ,” Derek hissed, revealing a glint of teeth, like he knew Stiles’s thoughts were running away from him. 

 

“Well if you already  _ know,  _ then you don’t need me telling you, Jesus.” Stiles breathed out but Derek kept his gaze on him, insisting. He sighed impatiently. “Okay then. That day in the woods, with my car? Yeah, that was him,” Stiles stuttered out, licking his lips. “He fully turned into a wolf. Can all werewolves do that?” 

 

“No. Not all,”  Derek answered. 

 

Stiles narrowed his eyes. “Then how exactly can that happen?” 

 

“Sometimes it’s from great deals of stress. Usually newly turned ones do that for a while until they can control the shift completely.” 

 

Derek huffed, his mouth twisting as he growled in his throat. “What’s going on, Derek?” At his name, Derek turned to watch him, and Stiles’s breath stopped halfway from his lungs for a moment, before he asked, “is it, whatever bit him. It's that, isn’t it?” Derek froze, contemplative, and if it was whether he was debating telling Stiles the truth or debating leaving, Stiles had no clue. But eventually, he nodded, looking solemn. “Do you know who did it?” This time he shook his head, and Derek  _ really  _ needed to learn how to use his words because it was not helpful to his cause to be so damn silent. Stiles grabbed onto his arm, heat radiating even through the thick leather sleeve of his jacket, and his hands felt clammy. “How do  _ you  _ know any of it?” 

 

"My family was involved with a pack, my mom--”

 

“Your mother?” Stiles said to himself. “Your mother was involved with werewolves?” Stiles couldn’t imagine Talia Hale being involved with anything like that, but when he thinks about it, he couldn’t imagine werewolves being real only a month ago. It makes his stomach sink when he realizes that his mother probably never knew. 

 

Derek raised an eyebrow in a sassy manner. “It’s not important--”

 

Stiles cut him off. “The hell it isn’t when Scott almost ran me off the  _ road  _ because he couldn’t control his whole werewolf shift. He won't actually try to kill anyone, will he?" 

 

Derek looked like he was about to say yes, and Stiles held his breath. As if he knew that Stiles needed a truthful answer, Derek squinted, said "I don't know."

 

Stiles made to speak because  _ Scott wouldn't kill a fly  _ and Derek interrupted before he could. "I don't think he would, but-- maybe whoever bit him, they could make him." He looked worried for possibly the first time since he'd shown up at the door. From his vantage point, Stiles could see the planes of his face, and stress lines gracing dark shadows on his cheeks.

 

Stiles considered this. "So are werewolves marionette puppets to their alphas? Who would want to make Scott kill someone anyways?"

 

"I don't know," Derek answered, and Stiles huffed. 

 

"I'm starting to see a trend in lack of knowledge here.”

 

Derek grunted, frustrated. “It’s different. I’ve only ever known born werewolves, never bitten ones. It’s hard to assume, because blind assumptions only end up with a high body count.” Derek’s eyes bore into his own, dark and haunted. 

 

Stiles paused, before moving to open his front door wide. “Well come on in then.” Derek hesitated, hands in the pockets of his ridiculous leather jacket.  “I can give Scott a call, and we’ll do some research to figure things out.” 

 

Derek did come in, and Stiles was surprised when he toed his shoes off immediately. The sight of Derek in socks made him look soft, and Stiles wasn’t close to prepared for that. He picked up Derek’s shoes and placed them in the closet before leading the way upstairs. They padded up the stairs slowly, Stiles watching in his periphery just in case, but Derek kept his head bent down as they advanced up. 

 

Once they were in his room, Derek’s gaze roamed over the expanse of it, settling on the pile of books littering the corner. He stalked over, picking one up labeled “Lycanthropy and Mythology” and flipped through the pages. 

 

Meanwhile, Stiles pulled out his cell phone and dialed Scott. Derek watched him intently as it rang, and Stiles motioned with his hand for him to sit. Derek didn’t listen, instead made to lean against the wall and glare at him. 

 

“Yeah dude, what’s up,” Scott answered, voice muffled (probably by potato chips if the accompanying crunching sounds were any indication). 

 

“So Derek Hale knows about werewolves and is concerned.” Stiles had a mouthed fight with Derek over his subtlety, and Derek motioned dramatically with his hands conveying perfectly how much of an idiot he thought Stiles was. 

 

“I’m so sorry dude,” Scott apologized, and Stiles blinked once. “I was going to tell you.” 

 

“Wait.” Stiles put a finger up. Derek fixed his gaze at the wall, and Stiles’s mouth hung open. “You  _ knew?  _ And you didn’t tell me.” 

 

“He was helping me with my shifting, but that was it.” 

 

Stiles breathed in and pursed his lips. The gears were running in his head, and he frowned. He could deal with that bit of disappointment later, or never. Proabably never. “Okay. That is besides the point of my call. Derek wants to know if you’re feeling homicidal right now.” 

 

Scott sounded curious. “Not any more than usual?” 

 

“Great,” Stiles said, and then hung up on him. “He’s fine!” Stiles chirped, turning slowly to consider Derek. “And he’s also the worst best friend in the world. But now I know I can trust you, I guess.” 

 

Derek looked like he was in actual pain. “Scott isn’t the brightest,” he said, like he was trying to convey more than that. 

 

“No, of course not. The wolf that turned him probably had no clue, poor guy,” Stiles joked, his headache building up in his temples. “I don’t know why you would be particularly worried right now, but thanks for looking out, I suppose.”

 

Derek’s mouth turned down.

 

“Do you want Chinese food?” Because his stomach was growling distractingly, and he didn’t feel like dealing with his bruised ego just then. 

 

“I’ll pay,” Derek offered with a nod, his expression tight. Stiles doesn’t know if it was a bribe for his forgiveness, but he was fine with it, because he only had ten bucks in his wallet and he was in the mood for sesame chicken. 

 

-

 

“So is everyone born of an alpha a werewolf automatically?” Stiles asked, slurping obnoxiously from his bowl of noodles. It would make sense that Derek was a werewolf with all of his being mysterious and all. 

 

Disgusted by what Stiles assumed were his eating habits, Derek averted his eyes. “No,” he muttered. “Most are born wolves, but there are always humans in the pack. There are also families that are emissaries to those packs.” 

 

“Emissaries.” Stiles hummed thoughtfully. “But they’re not always able to do magic, right?” 

 

“No.” Derek’s voice had gone quiet, and it left a warm feeling in his stomach. The way Derek stared at him left him fidgeting so he turned sideways again towards his computer. “There are only the ones that possess the spark. The rest can provide anchors, even as humans. They help us control the shift when we’re first learning.” 

 

“Right.” Stiles fumbled with the flask on his computer desk. There were some files sitting open that talked of the mix of magic to control emotional outbursts. “So,” he hedged. Derek paused with his fork halfway to his mouth, licking at his lips (Stiles didn’t focus on it. Much). It’s the first time he’d actually made to touch his food. Stiles cleared his throat. “Are you an alpha or a beta?” 

 

Derek swallowed drily. His eyes didn’t convey much, and Stiles made a maneuver to keep distance between them; Derek must have noticed at one point that Stiles never turned his back to him while they were there. Stiles raised an eyebrow. Because he knew his assumptions were usually based on hunches and little fact, but he also knew that Derek  _ had _ to be supernatural. No one was that good looking and was human at the same time. 

 

“I’m a beta,” Derek said, slow-- he knew it was a test, but he didn’t seem to know what the test was. 

 

“Prove it,” Stiles challenged quickly. Hesitantly, Derek slipped his eyes closed and when he opened them, they glowed blue. Stiles straightened up in his chair, curious. They were strikingly similar to Scott’s and when he blinked again, the blue was gone, green in its place. Stiles felt something like a punch to his gut, his skin crawled furiously. “I knew I was right,” Stiles grinned mischieviously, ignoring the discomfort. 

 

Derek chucked a chopstick at him, muttering “smartass” at him and ignored Stiles’s requests to fully transform into a cute werewolf. He won’t even let Stiles’s see his fully wolfed out face, and Stiles knows that’s a thing because Derek had revealed during research time that a half-beta form looks kind of like the wolfman. 

 

Stiles’s dad had questioned the amount of empty Chinese food containers on Stiles’s shelf when he came home for a surprise break. Stiles blamed it on teenage hormones and tried to close his window that was stuck open from where Derek had escaped in haste, stepping on the frame to try and force it down.

 

“Okay,” his dad muttered, walked away and into his bedroom. “I’ll get some oil for that,” he added from behind his door, and Stiles closed his eyes with a haunted expression. 

 

Derek scaled back up the side of Stiles’s house to help him close the window, and it was weird that he was only hanging on with one arm. He was glad that they didn’t have neighbors on that side of the house that would call the cops on Derek, and just the forest stared back at them. Stiles looked at Derek seriously; for a second he had the weird feeling that the combination of Derek and the forest was causing his head to spin.  “I hope sneaking in and out isn’t going to become a thing,” Stiles said quietly to him.

 

“Why?” Derek asked distractedly, rattled the window frame with what Stiles assumed was super strength. 

 

Stiles grinned to himself, and looked away from the trees and into forest-green eyes. “Because sneaking around is  _ my _ job.”

 

-

 

"Full moon's in a few weeks," Stiles mentioned, shoving a few pieces of chicken in his mouth as casually as he could. 

 

Scott stopped eating, set his burrito down. The buzz around the cafeteria seemed to distract him, as he still tried adjusting to the new super senses, but then he fixed his gaze back at Stiles. "Yeah?" 

 

"You're not feeling any different, right?"

 

Scott rolled his eyes. "I don't think I would be feeling any effects  _ now,  _ Stiles." 

 

"I suppose you're right," Stiles said conversationally. "Just checking, though. Derek wants to make sure the alpha won't target you before he figures out his next move."

 

"He actually has a next move?"

 

Stiles paused for a second before chuckling. "Also a good point." He chucked a wrapper quickly at Scott, and instead of getting a growly surprised face, he got a vaguely unimpressed one, but with some bared teeth. 

 

"You've been hanging out with Derek a lot then?" Scott had his gaze fixed down at his plate, hesitantly looking up. 

 

"Not reall-"

 

Scott twitched suddenly, head lifting and then he's scooting over, making room for Allison who had suddenly appeared. "Hey Stiles." She actually smiled in such a kind way; Stiles wanted to hate her, but she made it really hard when she was always so pleasant like that. 

 

"Allison," he grumped back. 

  
Scott smiled between the two of them, seeming completely in control, and Stiles couldn’t say any more on the subject. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! This is a little snippet to let you know that I am planning on finishing this fic eventually! I have about another half of this chapter that I didn't finish, but I figured that would be a good place to stop, so now I can work on a shorter next chapter! I hope you enjoy!  
> The song used in this chapter is "Bedroom Hymns" by Florence + The Machine (my queen)

**Author's Note:**

> This one is going to be a doozy, everyone! Right now, my plans include at least 3 or 4 more chapters. That may be subject to change, of course, as school comes to an end and my writing schedule is a little different than usual. 
> 
> Thanks so much to all of my supportive friends that kept yelling at me to get this at least written down; I couldn't have done it without you! 
> 
> Please, feel free to leave comments to let me know what you think! And come visit me on my [tumblr](www.obriensnipples.tumblr.com)


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